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Painting  by  N.  C.  Wyeth  Illustration  for  "  The  Mysterious  Stra; 

ESELDORF     WAS     A     PARADISE     FOR     US     BOYS 


THE 

MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

A    ROMANCE 


BY 

MARK    TWAIN 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS   BY 

N.   C.  WYETH 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK    AND    LONDON 


'  9  / 


•    "-1        S 

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Co "    sAi 
•    ft   \ 


THE  MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

Copyright,   1916,   by   Harper  &   Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  October,  1916 

K-Q 


1 
/ 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


ESELDORF  WAS  A  PARADISE  FOR  Us  BOYS Frontispiece 

THE  LIGHTNING  BLAZED  OUT  FLASH  UPON  FLASH  AND  SET  THE  CASTLE  ON 

FlRE Facing  p.  £0 

ON  THE  FOURTH  DAY  COMES  THE  ASTROLOGER  FROM  IIis  CRUMBLING  OLD 

TOWER "          33 

MARGET  WAS  CHEERFUL  BY  HELP  OF  WILHELM  MEIDLING "          GO 

THE  ASTROLOGER  EMPTIED  THE  WHOLE  OF  THE  BOWL  INTO  THE  BOTTLE  "          74 
THERE  WAS  A  SOUND  OF  TRAMPING  OUTSIDE  AND  THE  CROWD  CAME  SOL 
EMNLY  IN "       108 

"LIFE  ITSELF  Is  ONLY  A  VISION,  A  DREAM"       .' "       148 


THE  MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

CHAPTER  I 

IT  was  in  1590 — winter.  Austria  was  far  away  from  the 
world,  and  asleep;  it  was  still  the  Middle  Ages  in  Austria, 
and  promised  to  remain  so  forever.  Some  even  set  it  away 
back  centuries  upon  centuries  and  said  that  by  the  mental 
and  spiritual  clock  it  was  still  the  Age  of  Belief  in  Austria. 
But  they  meant  it  as  a  compliment,  not  a  slur,  and  it  was 
so  taken,  and  we  were  all  proud  of  it.  I  remember  it  well, 
although  I  was  only  a  boy;  and  I  remember,  too,  the 
pleasure  it  gave  me. 

Yes,  Austria  was  far  from  the  world,  and  asleep,  and 
our  village  was  in  the  middle  of  that  sleep,  being  in  the 
middle  of  Austria.  It  drowsed  in  peace  in  the  deep  privacy 
of  a  hilly  and  woodsy  solitude  where  news  from  the  world 
hardly  ever  came  to  disturb  its  dreams,  and  was  infinitely 
content.  At  its  front  flowed  the  tranquil  river,  its  surface 
painted  with  cloud-forms  and  the  reflections  of  drifting 
arks  and  stone-boats;  behind  it  rose  the  woody  steeps  to 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

the  base  of  the  lofty  precipice;  from  the  top  of  the  precipice 
frowned  a  vast  castle,  its  long  stretch  of  towers  and  bas 
tions  mailed  in  vines;  beyond  the  river,  a  league  to  the 
left,  was  a  tumbled  expanse  of  forest-clothed  hills  cloven 
by  winding  gorges  where  the  sun  never  penetrated;  and  to 
the  right  a  precipice  overlooked  the  river,  and  between  it 
and  the  hills  just  spoken  of  lay  a  far-reaching  plain  dotted 
with  little  homesteads  nested  among  orchards  and  shade 
trees. 

The  whole  region  for  leagues  around  was  the  hereditary 
property  of  a  prince,  whose  servants  kept  the  castle  always 
in  perfect  condition  for  occupancy,  but  neither  he  nor  his 
family  came  there  oftener  than  once  in  five  years.  When 
they  came  it  was  as  if  the  lord  of  the  world  had  arrived, 
and  had  brought  all  the  glories  of  its  kingdoms  along; 
and  when  they  went  they  left  a  calm  behind  which  was 
like  the  deep  sleep  which  follows  an  orgy. 

Eseldorf  was  a  paradise  for  us  boys.  We  were  not  over 
much  pestered  with  schooling.  Mainly  we  were  trained  to 
be  good  Christians;  to  revere  the  Virgin,  the  Church,  and 
the  saints  above  everything.  Beyond  these  matters  we 
were  not  required  to  know  much;  and,  in  fact,  not  allowed 
to.  Knowledge  was  not  good  for  the  common  people,  and 
could  make  them  discontented  with  the  lot  which  God  had 
appointed  for  them,  and  God  would  not  endure  discon 
tentment  with  His  plans.  We  had  two  priests.  One  of 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

them,  Father  Adolf,  was  a  very  zealous  and  strenuous 
priest,  much  considered. 

There  may  have  been  better  priests,  in  some  ways,  than 
Father  Adolf,  but  there  was  never  one  in  our  commune 
who  was  held  in  more  solemn  and  awful  respect.  This  was 
because  he  had  absolutely  no  fear  of  the  Devil.  He  was 
the  only  Christian  I  have  ever  known  of  whom  that  could 
be  truly  said.  People  stood  in  deep  dread  of  him  on  that 
account;  for  they  thought  that  there  must  be  something 
supernatural  about  him,  else  he  could  not  be  so  bold  and 
so  confident.  All  men  speak  in  bitter  disapproval  of  the 
Devil,  but  they  do  it  reverently,  not  flippantly;  but 
Father  Adolf's  way  was  very  different;  he  called  him  by 
every  name  he  could  lay  his  tongue  to,  and  it  made  every 
one  shudder  that  heard  him;  and  often  he  would  even 
speak  of  him  scornfully  and  scoffingly;  then  the  people 
crossed  themselves  and  went  quickly  out  of  his  presence, 
fearing  that  something  fearful  might  happen. 

Father  Adolf  had  actually  met  Satan  face  to  face  more 
than  once,  and  defied  him.  This  was  known  to  be  so. 
Father  Adolf  said  it  himself.  He  never  made  any  secret 
of  it,  but  spoke  it  right  out.  And  that  he  was  speaking 
true  there  was  proof  in  at  least  one  instance,  for  on  that 
occasion  he  quarreled  with  the  enemy,  and  intrepidly  threw 
his  bottle  at  him;  and  there,  upon  the  wall  of  his  study, 

was  the  ruddy  splotch  where  it  struck  and  broke. 

3 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

But  it  was  Father  Peter,  the  other  priest,  that  we  all 
loved  best  and  were  sorriest  for.  Some  people  charged  him 
with  talking  around  in  conversation  that  God  was  all  good 
ness  and  would  find  a  way  to  save  all  his  poor  human 
children.  ,It  was  a  horrible  thing  to  say,  but  there  was 
r«  ever  any  absolute  proof  that  Father  Peter  said  it;  and  it 
wa&  out  of  character  for  him  to  say  it,  too,  for  he  was  al- 

,  ways  good  and  gentle  and  truthful.  He  wasn't  charged 
with  saying  it  in  the  pulpit,  where  all  the  congregation 

!  could  hear  and  testify,  but  only  outside,  in  talk;  and  it  is 
easy  for  enemies  to  manufacture  that.  Father  Peter  had 
an  enemy  and  a  very  powerful  one,  the  astrologer  who 
lived  in  a  tumbled  old  tower  up  the  valley,  and  put  in  his 
nights  studying  the  stars.  Every  one  knew  he  could  foretell 
wars  and  famines,  though  that  was  not  so  hard,  for  then* 
was  always  a  war  and  generally  a  famine  somewhere.  Bui 
he  could  also  read  any  man's  life  through  the  stars  in  a 
big  book  he  had,  and  find  lost  property,  and  every  one  in 
the  village  except  Father  Peter  stood  in  awe  of  him.  Even 
Father  Adolf,  who  had  defied  the  Devil,  had  a  wholesome 
respect  for  the  astrologer  when  he  came  through  our  village 
wearing  his  tall,  pointed  hat  and  his  long,  flowing  robe 
with  stars  on  it,  carrying  his  big  book,  and  a  staff  which 
was  known  to  have  magic  power.  The  bishop  himself 
sometimes  listened  to  the  astrologer,  it  was  said,  for,  be 
sides-  studying  the  stars  and  prophesying,  the  astrologer 

4 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

made  a  great  show  of  piety,  which  would  impress  the 
bishop,  of  course. 

But  Father  Peter  took  no  stock  in  the  astrologer.  He 
denounced  him  openly  as  a  charlatan — a  fraud  with  no  val 
uable  knowledge  of  any  kind,  or  powers  beyond  those  of  an 
ordinary  and  rather  inferior  human  being,  which  naturally 
made  the  astrologer  hate  Father  Peter  and  wish  to  ruin 
him.  It  was  the  astrologer,  as  we  all  believed,  who  orig 
inated  the  story  about  Father  Peter's  shocking  remark  and 
carried  it  to  the  bishop.  It  was  said  that  Father  Peter  had 
made  the  remark  to  his  niece,  Marget,  though  Marget 
denied  it  and  implored  the  bishop  to  believe  her  and  spare 
her  old  uncle  from  poverty  and  disgrace.  But  the  bishop 
wouldn't  listen.  He  suspended  Father  Peter  indefinitely, 
though  he  wouldn't  go  so  far  as  to  excommunicate  him  on 
the  evidence  of  only  one  witness;  and  now  Father  Peter 
had  been  out  a  couple  of  years,  and  our  other  priest,  Father 
Adolf,  had  his  flock. 

Those  had  been  hard  years  for  the  old  priest  and  Marget. 
They  had  been  favorites,  but  of  course  that  changed  when 
they  came  under  the  shadow  of  the  bishop's  frowrn.  Many 
of  their  friends  fell  away  entirely,  and  the  rest  became  cool 
and  distant.  Marget  was  a  lovely  girl  of  eighteen  when 
the  trouble  came,  and  she  had  the  best  head  in  the  village, 
and  the  most  in  it.  She  taught  the  harp,  and  earned  all 

her  clothes  and  pocket  money  by  her  own  industry.     But 

5 


- 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

her  scholars  fell  off  one  by  one  now;  she  was  forgotten 
when  there  were  dances  and  parties  among  the  youth  of 
the  village;  the  young  fellows  stopped  coming  to  the  house, 
all  except  Wilhelm  Meidling — and  he  could  have  been 
spared;  she  and  her  uncle  were  sad  and  forlorn  in  their 
neglect  and  disgrace,  and  the  sunshine  was  gone  out  of 
their  lives.  Matters  went  worse  and  worse,  all  through  the 
two  years.  Clothes  were  wearing  out,  bread  \vas  harder 
and  harder  to  get.  And  now,  at  last,  the  very  end  wras 
come.  Solomon  Isaacs  had  lent  all  the  money  he  was 
willing  to  put  on  the  house,  and  gave  notice  that  to-morrow 
he  would  foreclose. 


CHAPTER    II 

THREE  of  us  boys  were  always  together,  and  had  been 
so  from  the  cradle,  being  fond  of  one  another  from  the 
beginning,  and  this  affection  deepened  as  the  years  went 
on — Nikolaus  Bauman,  son  of  the  principal  judge  of  the 
local  court;  Seppi  Wohlmeyer,  son  of  the  keeper  of  the 
principal  inn,  the  "Golden  Stag,"  which  had  a  nice  garden, 
with  shade  trees  reaching  down  to  the  riverside,  and  pleas 
ure  boats  for  hire;  and  I  was  the  third — Theodor  Fischer, 
son  of  the  church  organist,  who  was  also  leader  of  the 
village  musicians,  teacher  of  the  violin,  composer,  tax- 
collector  of  the  commune,  sexton,  and  in  other  ways  a 
useful  citizen,  and  respected  by  all.  We  knew  the  hills  and 
the  woods  as  well  as  the  birds  knew  them;  for  we  were 
always  roaming  them  when  we  had  leisure — at  least,  when 
we  were  not  swimming  or  boating  or  fishing,  or  playing  on 
the  ice  or  sliding  down  hill. 

And  we  had  the  run  of  the  castle  park,  and  very  few 
had  that.  It  was  because  we  were  pets  of  the  oldest  serving- 
man  in  the  castle — Felix  Brandt;  and  often  we  went  there, 

nights,  to  hear  him  talk  about  old  times  and  strange  things, 

7 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

and  to  smoke  with  him  (he  taught  us  that)  and  to  drink 
coffee;  for  he  had  served  in  the  wars,  and  was  at  the  siege 
of  Vienna;  and  there,  when  the  Turks  were  defeated  and 
driven  away,  among  the  captured  things  were  bags  of 
coffee,  and  the  Turkish  prisoners  explained  the  character 
of  it  and  how  to  make  a  pleasant  drink  out  of  it,  and  now 
he  always  kept  coffee  by  him,  to  drink  himself  and  also  to 
astonish  the  ignorant  with.  When  it  stormed  he  kept  us 
all  night;  and  while  it  thundered  and  lightened  outside  he 
t  told  us  about  ghosts  and  horrors  of  every  kind,  and  of 
battles  and  murders  and  mutilations,  and  such  things,  and 
made  it  pleasant  and  cozy  inside;  and  he  told  these  things 
from  his  own  experience  largely.  He  had  seen  many 
ghosts  in  his  time,  and  witches  and  enchanters,  and  once 
he  was  lost  in  a  fierce  storm  at  midnight  in  the  mountains, 
and  by  the  glare  of  the  lightning  had  seen  the  Wild  Hunts 
man  rage  on  the  blast  with  his  specter  dogs  chasing  after 
him  through  the  driving  cloud-rack.  Also  he  had  seen  an 
incubus  once,  and  several  times  he  had  seen  the  great  bat 
that  sucks  the  blood  from  the  necks  of  people  while  they 
are  asleep,  fanning  them  softly  with  its  wings  and  so  keep 
ing  them  drowsy  till  they  die. 

He  encouraged  us  not  to  fear  supernatural  things,  such 
as  ghosts,  and  said  they  did  no  harm,  but  only  wandered 
about  because  they  were  lonely  and  distressed  and  wanted 
kindly  notice  and  compassion;  and  in  time  we  learned 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

not  to  be  afraid,  and  even  went  down  with  him  in  the  night 
to  the  haunted  chamber  in  the  dungeons  of  the  castle.  The 
ghost  appeared  only  once,  and  it  went  by  very  dim  to  the 
sight  and  floated  noiseless  through  the  air,  and  then  dis 
appeared;  and  we  scarcely  trembled,  he  had  taught  us  so 
well.  He  said  it  came  up  sometimes  in  the  night  and  woke 
him  by  passing  its  clammy  hand  over  his  face,  but  it  did 
him  no  hurt;  it  only  wanted  sympathy  and  notice.  But 
the  strangest  thing  was  that  he  had  seen  angels — actual 
angels  out  of  heaven — and  had  talked  with  them.  They 
had  no  wings,  and  wore  clothes,  and  talked  and  looked  and 
acted  just  like  any  natural  person,  and  you  would  never 
know  them  for  angels  except  for  the  wonderful  things  they 
did  which  a  mortal  could  not  do,  and  the  way  they  sud 
denly  disappeared  while  you  were  talking  with  them,  which 
was  also  a  thing  which  no  mortal  could  do.  And  he  said 
they  were  pleasant  and  cheerful,  not  gloomy  and  melan 
choly,  like  ghosts. 

It  was  after  that  kind  of  a  talk  one  May  night  that 
we  got  up  next  morning  and  had  a  good  breakfast  with 
him  and  then  went  down  and  crossed  the  bridge  and 
went  away  up  into  the  hills  on  the  left  to  a  woody 
hill -top  which  was  a  favorite  place  of  ours,  and  there 
we  stretched  out  on  the  grass  in  the  shade  to  rest  and 
smoke  and  talk  over  these  strange  things,  for  they  were 

in  our  minds  yet,  and   impressing  us.     But  we  couldn't 
2  L  9 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

smoke,  because  we  had  been  heedless  and  left  our  flint 
and  steel  behind. 

Soon  there  came  a  youth  strolling  toward  us  through 
the  trees,  and  he  sat  down  and  began  to  talk  in  a  friendly 
way,  just  as  if  he  knew  us.  But  we  did  not  answer  him, 
for  he  was  a  stranger  and  we  were  not  used  to  strangers 
and  were  shy  of  them.  He  had  new  and  good  clothes  on, 
and  was  handsome  and  had  a  winning  face  and  a  pleasant 
(voice,  and  was  easy  and  graceful  and  unembarrassed,  not 
;slouchy  and  awkward  and  diffident,  like  other  boys.  We 
wanted  to  be  friendly  with  him,  but  didn't  know  how  to 
begin.  Then  I  thought  of  the  pipe,  and  wondered  if  it 
would  be  taken  as  kindly  meant  if  I  offered  it  to  him. 
But  I  remembered  that  we  had  no  fire,  so  I  was  sorry  and 
disappointed.  But  he  looked  up  bright  and  pleased,  and 
said: 

"Fire?  Oh,  that  is  easy;  I  will  furnish  it." 
I  was  so  astonished  I  couldn't  speak;  for  I  had  not  said 
anything.  He  took  the  pipe  and  blew  his  breath  on  it, 
and  the  tobacco  glowed  red,  and  spirals  of  blue  smoke  rose 
up.  We  jumped  up  and  were  going  to  run,  for  that  was 
natural;  and  we  did  run  a  few  steps,  although  he  was 
yearningly  pleading  for  us  to  stay,  and  giving  us  his  word 
that  he  would  not  do  us  any  harm,  but  only  wanted  to  be 
friends  with  us  and  have  company.  So  we  stopped  and 

stood,  and  wanted  to  go  back,  being  full  of  curiosity  and 

10 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

wonder,  but  afraid  to  venture.  He  went  on  coaxing,  in  his 
soft,  persuasive  way;  and  when  we  saw  that  the  pipe  did 
not  blow  up  and  nothing  happened,  our  confidence  returned 
by  little  and  little,  and  presently  our  curiosity  got  to  be 
stronger  than  our  fear,  and  we  ventured  back — but  slowly, 
and  ready  to  fly  at  any  alarm. 

^  He  was  bent  on  putting  us  at  ease,  and  he  had  the  right 
art;  one  could  not  remain  doubtful  and  timorous  where  a 
person  was  so  earnest  and  simple  and  gentle,  and  talked  so 
ialluringly  as  he  did;  no,  he  won  us  over,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  we  were  content  and  comfortable  and  chatty, 
./and  glad  we  had  found  this  new  friend.  When  the  feeling 
of  constraint  was  all  gone  we  asked  him  how  he  had  learned 
to  do  that  strange  thing,  and  he  said  he  hadn't  learned  it 
at  all;  it  came  natural  to  him — like  other  things — other 
curious  things. 

"What  ones?" 

"Oh,  a  number;  I  don't  know  how  many." 

"Will  you  let  us  see  you  do  them?" 

"Do — please!"  the  others  said. 

;<You  won't  run  away  again?" 

"No— indeed  we  won't.    Please  do.     Won't  you?" 

"Yes,  with    pleasure;    but    you   mustn't    forget   your 
promise,  you  know." 

We  said  we  wouldn't,  and  he  went  to  a  puddle  and  came 

back  with  water  in  a  cup  which  he  had  made  out  of  a  leaf, 

11 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

and  blew  upon  it  and  threw  it  out,  and  it  was  a  lump  of 
ice  the  shape  of  the  cup.  We  were  astonished  and  charmed, 
but  not  afraid  any  more;  we  were  very  glad  to  be  there, 
and  asked  him  to  go  on  and  do  some  more  things.  And 
he  did.  He  said  he  would  give  us  any  kind  of  fruit  we 
liked,  whether  it  was  in  season  or  not.  We  all  spoke  at 
once: 

"Orange!" 

"Apple!" 

"Grapes!" 

"They  are  in  your  pockets,"  he  said,  and  it  was  true. 
And  they  were  of  the  best,  too,  and  we  ate  them  and 
wished  we  had  more,  though  none  of  us  said  so. 

'You  will  find  them  where  those  came  from,"  he  said, 
"and  everything  else  your  appetites  call  for;  and  you  need 
not  name  the  thing  you  wish;  as  long  as  I  am  with  you, 
you  have  only  to  wish  and  find." 

And  he  said  true.  There  was  never  anything  so  won 
derful  and  so  interesting.  Bread,  cakes,  sweets,  nuts — what 
ever  one  wanted,  it  was  there.  He  ate  nothing  himself, 
but  sat  and  chatted,  and  did  one  curious  thing  after  another 
to  amuse  us.  He  made  a  tiny  toy  squirrel  out  of  clay,  and 
it  ran  up  a  tree  and  sat  on  a  limb  overhead  and  barked 
down  at  us.  Then  he  made  a  dog  that  was  not  much  larger 
than  a  mouse,  and  it  treed  the  squirrel  and  danced  aboat 
the  tree,  excited  $nd  barking,  and  was  as  alive  as  any  dog 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

could  be.  It  frightened  the  squirrel  from  tree  to  tree  and 
followed  it  up  until  both  were  out  of  sight  in  the  forest. 
He  made  birds  out  of  clay  and  set  them  free,  and  they  flew 
away,  singing. 

At  last  I  made  bold  to  ask  him  to  tell  us  who  he  was. 

44  An  angel,"  he  said,  quite  simply,  and  set  another  bird 
free  and  clapped  his  hands  and  made  it  fly  away. 

A  kind  of  awe  fell  upon  us  when  we  heard  him  say  that, 
and  we  were  afraid  again;  but  he  said  we  need  not  be 
troubled,  there  was  no  occasion  for  us  to  be  afraid  of  an 
angel,  and  he  liked  us,  anyway.  He  went  on  chatting  as 
simply  and  unaffectedly  as  ever;  and  while  he  talked  he 
made  a  crowd  of  little  men  and  women  the  size  of  your 
finger,  and  they  went  diligently  to  work  and  cleared  and 
leveled  off  a  space  a  couple  of  yards  square  in  the  grass 
and  began  to  build  a  cunning  little  castle  in  it,  the  women 
mixing  the  mortar  and  carrying  it  up  the  scaffoldings  in 
pails  on  their  heads,  just  as  our  work-women  have  always 
done,  and  the  men  laying  the  courses  of  masonry — five 
hundred  of  these  toy  people  swarming  briskly  about  and 
working  diligently  and  wiping  the  sweat  off  their  faces  as 
natural  as  life.  In  the  absorbing  interest  of  watching  those 
five  hundred  little  people  make  the  cast  le  grow  step  by 
step  and  course  by  course,  and  take  shape  and  symmetry, 
that  feeling  and  awe  soon  passed  away  and  we  were  quite 

comfortable  and  at  home  again.     We  asked  if  we  might 

13 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

make  some  people,  and  he  said  yes,  and  told  Seppi  to  make 
some  cannon  for  the  walls,  and  told  Nikolaus  to  make  some 
halberdiers,  with  breastplates  and  greaves  and  helmets,  and 
I  was  to  make  some  cavalry,  with  horses,  and  in  allotting 
these  tasks  he  called  us  by  our  names,  but  did  not  say  how 
he  knew  them.  Then  Seppi  asked  him  what  his  own  name 
was,  and  he  said,  tranquilly,  "Satan,"  and  held  out  a 
chip  and  caught  a  little  woman  on  it  who  was  falling  from 
the  scaffolding  and  put  her  back  where  she  belonged,  and 
said,  "She  is  an  idiot  to  step  backward  like  that  and  not 
notice  what  she  is  about." 

It  caught  us  suddenly,  that  name  did,  and  our  work 
dropped  out  of  our  hands  and  broke  to  pieces — a  cannon, 
a  halberdier,  and  a  horse.  Satan  laughed,  and  asked  what 
was  the  matter.  I  said,  "  Nothing,  only  it  seemed  a  strange 
name  for  an  angel."  He  asked  why.  , 

"Because  it's — it's— well,  it's  his  name,  you  know." 

"Yes — he  is  my  uncle." 

He  said  it  placidly,  but  it  took  our  breath  for  a  moment 
and  made  our  hearts  beat.  He  did  not  seem  to  notice  that, 
but  mended  our  halberdiers  and  things  with  a  touch, 
handing  them  to  us  finished,  and  said,  "Don't  you  remem 
ber? — he  was  an  angel  himself,  once." 

"Yes— it's  true,"  said  Seppi;   "I  didn't  think  of  that." 

"Before  the  Fall  he  was  blameless." 

"Yes,"  said  Nikolaus,  "he  was  without  sin." 

14 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"It  is  a  good  family — ours,"  said  Satan;  "there  is  not 
a  better.  He  is  the  only  member  of  it  that  has  ever  sinned." 

I  should  not  be  able  to  make  any  one  understand  how 
exciting  it  all  was.  H^ou  know  that  kind  of  quiver  that 
trembles  around  through  you  when  you  are  seeing  some 
thing  so  strange  and  enchanting  and  wonderful  that  it  is 
just  a  fearful  joy  to  be  alive  and  look  at  it;  and  you  know 
how  you  gaze,  and  your  lips  turn  dry  and  your  breath 
comes  short,  but  you  wouldn't  be  anywhere  but  there,  net 
for  the  world!  I  was  bursting  to  ask  one  question — I  had 
it  on  my  tongue's  end  and  could  hardly  hold  it  back — but 
I  was  ashamed  to  ask  it;  it  might  be  a  rudeness.  Satan 
set  an  ox  down  that  he  had  been  making,  and  smiled  up  at 
me  and  said: 

"It  wouldn't  be  a  rudeness,  and  I  should  forgive  it  if 
it  was.  Have  I  seen  him?  Millions  of  times.  From  the 
time  that  I  was  a  little  child  a  thousand  years  old  I  was  his 
second  favorite  among  the  nursery  angels  of  our  blood  and 
lineage — to  use  a  human  phrase — yes,  from  that  time  until 
the  Fall,  eight  thousand  years,  measured  as  you  count  time." 

"Eight— thousand!" 

"Yes."  He  turned  to  Seppi,  and  went  on  as  if  answer 
ing  something  that  was  in  Seppi's  mind:  "Why,  naturally 
I  look  like  a  boy,  for  that  is  what  I  am.  With  us  what  you 
call  time  is  a  spacious  thing;  it  takes  a  long  stretch  of  it 

to  grow  an  angel  to  full  age."     There  was  a  question  in 

15 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

my  mind,  and  he  turned  to  me  and  answered  it,  "I  am  six 
teen  thousand  years  old — counting  as  you  count."  Then 
he  turned  to  Nikolaus  and  said:  "No,  the  Fall  did  not 
affect  me  nor  the  rest  of  the  relationship.  It  was  only  he 
that  I  was  named  for  who  ate  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  and 
then  beguiled  the  man  and  the  woman  with  it.  We  others 
are  still  ignorant  of  sin;  we  are  not  able  to  commit  it;  we 
are  without  blemish,  and  shall  abide  in  that  estate  always. 
We—  Two  of  the  little  workmen  were  quarreling,  and 
in  buzzing  little  bumblebee  voices  they  were  cursing  and 
swearing  at  each  other;  now  came  blows  and  blood;  then 
they  locked  themselves  together  in  a  life-and-death  struggle. 
Satan  reached  out  his  hand  and  crushed  the  life  out  of 
them  with  his  fingers,  threw  them  away,  wiped  the  red  from 
his  fingers  on  his  handkerchief,  and  went  on  talking  wrhere 
he  had  left  off:  "We  cannot  do  wrong;  neither  have  we 
any  disposition  to  do  it,  for  we  do  not  know  what  it  is.", 

It  seemed  a  strange  speech,  in  the  circumstances,  but 
we  barely  noticed  that,  we  were  so  shocked  and  grieved 
at  the  wanton  murder  he  had  committed — for  murder  it 
\vas,  that  was  its  true  name,  and  it  was  without  palliation  or 
excuse,  for  the  men  had  not  wronged  him  in  any  way.  It 
made  us  miserable,  for  we  loved  him,  and  had  thought 
him  so  noble  and  so  beautiful  and  gracious,  and  had  hon 
estly  believed  he  was  an  angel;  and  to  have  him  do  this 

cruel  thing — ah,  it  lowered  him  so,  and  we  had  had  such 

16 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

pride  in  him.  He  went  right  on  talking,  just  as  if  nothing 
had  happened,  telling  about  his  travels,  and  the  interesting 
things  he  had  seen  in  the  big  worlds  of  our  solar  system  and 
of  other  solar  systems  far  away  in  the  remotenesses  of 
space,  and  about  the  customs  of  the  immortals  that  inhabit 
them,  somehow  fascinating  us, enchanting  us, charming  us  in 
spite  of  the  pitiful  scene  that  was  now  under  our  eyes,  for 
the  wives  of  the  little  dead  men  had  found  the  crushed  and 
shapeless  bodies  and  were  crying  over  them,  and  sobbing 
and  lamenting,  and  a  priest  was  kneeling  there  with  his 
hands  crossed  upon  his  breast,  praying;  and  crowds  and 
crowds  of  pitying  friends  were  massed  about  them,  rever 
ently  uncovered,  with  their  bare  heads  bowed,  and  many 
with  the  tears  running  down — a  scene  which  Satan  paid 
no  attention  to  until  the  small  noise  of  the  weeping  and 
praying  began  to  annoy  them,  then  he  reached  out  and  took 
the  heavy  board  seat  out  of  our  swing  and  brought  it  down 
and  mashed  all  those  people  into  the  earth  just  as  if  they 
had  been  flies,  and  went  on  talking  just  the  same. 

An  angel,  and  kill  a  priest !  An  angel  who  did  not  know 
how  to  do  wrong,  and  yet  destroys  in  cold  blood  hundreds 
of  helpless  poor  men  and  women  who  had  never  done  him 
any  harm!  It  made  us  sick  to  see  that  awful  deed,  and  to 
think  that  none  of  those  poor  creatures  was  prepared 
except  the  priest,  for  none  of  them  had  ever  heard  a  mass 

or  seen  a  church.     And  we  were  witnesses;    we  had  seen 

17 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

these  murders  done  and  it  was  our  duty  to  tell,  and  let  the 
law  take  its  course. 

But  he  went  on  talking  right  along,  and  worked  his 
enchantments  upon  us  again  with  that  fatal  music  of  his 
voice.  He  made  us  forget  everything;  we  could  only  listen 
to  him,  and  love  him,  and  be  his  slaves,  to  do  with  us  as  he 
would.  He  made  us  drunk  with  the  joy  of  being  with  him, 
and  of  looking  into  the  heaven  of  his  eyes,  and  of  feeling 
the  ecstasy  that  thrilled  along  our  veins  from  the  touch 
of  his  hand. 


CHAPTER   III 

jfT^HE  Stranger  had  seen  everything,  he  had  been  every- 
J^  where,  he  knew  everything,  and  he  forgot  nothing. 
What  another  must  study,  he  learned  at  a  glance;  there 
were  no  difficulties  for  him.  And  he  made  things  live-be 
fore  you  when  he  told  about  them.  He  saw  the  world 
made;  he  saw  Adam  created ;  he  saw  Samson  surge  against 
the  pillars  and  bring  the  temple  down  in  ruins  about  him; 
he  saw  Caesar's  death;  he  told  of  the  daily  life  in  heaven; 
he  had  seen  the  damned  writhing  in  the  red  waves  of  hell; 
and  he  made  us  see  all  these  things,  and  it  was  as  if  we 
were  on  the  spot  and  looking  at  them  with  our  own  eyes. 
And  we  felt  them,  too,  but  there  was_no  sign  that  they 
were  anything  to  him  beyond  mere  entertainments.  Those 
visions  of  hell,  those  poor  babes  and  women  and  girls  and 
lads  and  men  shrieking  and  supplicating  in  anguish — why, 
we  could  hardly  bear  it,  but  he  was  as  bland  about  it  as  if 
it  had  been  so  many  imitation  rats  in  an  artificial  fire. 

And  always  when  he  was  talking  about  men  and  women 
here  on  the  earth  and  their  doings — even  their  grandest 

and  sublimest — \ve  were  secretly  ashamed,  for  his  manner 

19  " 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

"showed  that  to  him  they  and  their  doings  were  of  paltry 
poor  consequence;  /often  you  would  think  he  was  talking 
about  flies,  if  you  didn't  know.  Once  he  even  said,  in  so 
many  wrords,  that  our  people  down  here  were  quite  inter 
esting  to  him,  notwithstanding  they  were  so  dull  and  igno 
rant  and  trivial  and  conceited,  and  so  diseased  and  rickety, 
and  such  a  shabby,  poor,  worthless  lot  all  around.  He  said 
it  in  a  quite  matter-of-course  way  and  without  bitterness, 
just  as  a  person  might  talk  about  bricks  or  manure  or  any 
other  thing  that  was  of  no  consequence  and  hadn't  feelings. 
I  could  see  he  meant  no  offense,  but  in  my  thoughts  I  set 
it  down  as  not  very  good  manners. 

"Manners!"  he  said.  "Why,  it  is  merely  the  truth,  and 
truth  is  good  manners;  manners  are  a  fiction.  The  castle 
is  done.  Do  you  like  it?" 

Any  one  would  have  been  obliged  to  like  it.  It  was  lovely 
to  look  at,  it  was  so  shapely  and  fine,  and  so  cunningly 
perfect  in  all  its  particulars,  even  to  the  little  flags  waving 
from  the  turrets.  Satan  said  we  must  put  the  artillery  in 
place  now,  and  station  the  halberdiers  and  display  the 
cavalry.  Our  men  and  horses  were  a  spectacle  to  see,  they 
were  so  little  like  what  they  were  intended  for;  for,  of 
course,  w^e  had  no  art  in  making  such  things.  Satan  said 
they  were  the  wrorst  he  had  seen;  and  when  he  touched 
them  and  made  them  alive,  it  was  just  ridiculous  the  way 

they  acted,  on  account  of  their  legs  not  being  of  uniform 

20 


Painting  by  N.  C.  Wyelh 

THE    LIGHTNING    BLAZED    OUT    FLASH    UPON    FLASH    ANQ>    SET    THE    CASTLE    ON    FIRE 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

lengths.  They  reeled  and  sprawled  around  as  if  they  were 
drunk,  and  endangered  everybody's  lives  around  them, 
and  finally  fell  over  and  lay  helpless  and  kicking.  It  made 
us  all  laughj_  though  it  was  a  shameful  thing  to  see.  The 
guns  were  charged  with  dirt,  to  fire  a  salute,  but  they  were 
so  crooked  and  so  badly  made  that  they  all  burst  when  they 
went  off,  and  killed  some  of  the  gunners  and  crippled  the 
others.  Satan  said  we  would  have  a  storm  now,  and  an 
earthquake,  if  we  liked,  but  we  must  stand  off  a  piece, 
out  of  danger.  We  wanted  to  call  the  people  away,  too, 
but  he  said  never  mind  them;  they^were  of  no  consequence, 
.and  we  could  make  more,  some  time  or  other,  if  we  needed 


A  small  storm-cloud  began  to  settle  down  black  over 
the  castle,  and  the  miniature  lightning  and  thunder  began 
to  play,  and  the  ground  to  quiver,  and  the  wind  to  pipe 
and  wheeze,  and  the  rain  to  fall,  and  all  the  people  flocked 
into  the  castle  for  shelter.  The  cloud  settled  down  blacker 
and  blacker,  and  one  could  see  the  castle  only  dimly  through 
it;  the  lightning  blazed  out  flash  upon  flash  and  pierced 
the  castle  and  set  it  on  fire,  and  the  flames  shone  out  red 
and  fierce  through  the  cloud,  and  the  people  came  flying 
out,  shrieking,  but  Satan  brushed  them  back,  paying  no 
attention  to  our  begging  and  crying  and  imploring;  and 
in  the  midst  of  the  howling  of  the  wind  and  volleying  of 

the  thunder  the  magazine  blew  up,  the  earthquake  rent 

21 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

the  ground  wide,  and  the  castle's  wreck  and  ruin  tumbled 
into  the  chasm,  which  swallowed  it  from  sight  and  closed 
upon  it,  with  all  that  innocent  life,  not  one  of  the  five 
hundred  poor  creatures  escaping.  Our  hearts  were  broken; 
we  could  not  keep  from  crying. 

"Don't  cry,"  Satan  said;  "they  were  of  no  value." 

"But  they  are  gone  to  hell!" 

"Oh,  it  is  no  matter;   we  can  make  plenty  more." 

It  was  of  no  use  to  try  to  move  him;  evidently  he  was 
wholly  without  feelings,  and  could  not  understand.  'He 
was  full  of  bubbling  spirits,  and  as  gay  as  if  this  were  a 
wedding  instead  of  a  fiendish  massacre.  And  he  was  bent 
on  making  us  feel  as  he  did,  and  of  course  his  magic  ac 
complished  his  desire.  It  was  no  trouble  to  him;  he  did 
whatever  he  pleased  with  us.  In  a  little  while  we  were 
dancing  on  that  grave,  and  he  was  playing  to  us  on  a 
strange,  sweet  instrument  which  he  took  out  of  his  pocket; 
and  the  music — but  there  is  no  music  like  that,  unless 
perhaps  in  heaven,  and  that  was  where  he  brought  it  from, 
he  said.  It  made  one  mad,  for  pleasure;  and  we  could 
not  take  our  eyes  from  him,  and  the  looks  that  went  out 
of  our  eyes  came  from  our  hearts,  and  their  dumb  speech 
was  worship.  He  brought  the  dance  from  heaven,  too, 
and  the  bliss  of  paradise  was  in  it. 

Presently  he  said  he  must  go  away  on  an  errand.  But 
we  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  it,  and  clung  to  him, 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

and  pleaded  with  him  to  stay;  and  that  pleased  him,  and 
he  said  so,  and  said  he  would  not  go  yet,  but  would  wait 
a  little  while  and  we  would  sit  down  and  talk  a  few  minutes 
longer;  and  he  told  us  Satan  was  only  his  real  name, 
and  he  was  to  be  known  by  it  to  us  alone,  but  he  had 
chosen  another  one  to  be  called  by  in  the  presence  of  others ; 
just  a  common  one,  such  as  people  have — Philip  Traum. 

It  sounded  so  odd  and  mean  for  such  a  being!  But  it 
was  his  decision,  and  we  said  nothing;  his  decision  was 
sufficient. 

We  had  seen  wonders  this  day;  and  my  thoughts  began 
to  run  on  the  pleasure  it  would  be  to  tell  them  when  I 
got  home,  but  he  noticed  those  thoughts,  and  said: 

"No,  all  these  matters  are  a  secret  among  us  four.  I 
do  not  mind  your  trying  to  tell  them,  if  you  like,  but  I 
will  protect  your  tongues,  and  nothing  of  the  secret  will 
escape  from  them." 

It  was  a  disappointment,  but  it  couldn't  be  helped,  and 
it  cost  us  a  sigh  or  two.  We  talked  pleasantly  along, 
and  he  was  always  reading  our  thoughts  and  responding 
to  them,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  this  was  the  most  wonder 
ful  of  all  the  things  he  did,  but  he  interrupted  my  musings 
and  said: 

"No,  it  would  be  wonderful  for  you,  but  it  is  not  won 
derful  for  me.  I  am  not  limited  like  you.  I  am  not  sub 
ject  to  human  conditions.  I  can  measure  and  under- 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

stand  your  human  weaknesses,  for  I  have  studied  them; 
but  I  have  none  of  them.  My  flesh  is  not  real,  although 
it  would  seem  firm  to  your  touch;  my  clothes  are  not 
real;  I  am  a  spirit.  Father  Peter  is  coming.  We  looked 
around,  but  did  not  see  any  one.  "He  is  not  in  sight  yet, 
but  you  will  see  him  presently." 

"Do  you  know  him,  Satan?" 

"No." 

"Won't  you  talk  with  him  when  he  .comes?  He  is  not 
ignorant  and  dull,  like  us,  and  he  would  so  like  to  talk 
with  you.  W7ill  you?" 

"Another  time,  yes,  but  not  now.  I  must  go  on  my 
errand  after  a  little.  There  he  is  now;  you  can  see  him. 
Sit  still,  and  don't  say  anything." 

We  looked  up  and  saw  Father  Peter  approaching 
through  the  chestnuts.  W"e  three  were  sitting  together  in 
the  grass,  and  Satan  sat  in  front  of  us  in  the  path.  Father 
Peter  came  slowly  along  with  his  head  down,  thinking,  and 
stopped  within  a  couple  of  yards  of  us  and  took  off  his  hat 
and  got  out  his  silk  handkerchief,  and  stood  there  mopping 
his  face  and  looking  as  if  he  were  going  to  speak  to  us, 
but  he  didn't.  Presently  he  muttered,  "I  can't  think  what 
brought  me  here;  it  seems  as  if  I  were  in  my  study  a 
minute  ago — but  I  suppose  I  have  been  dreaming  along 
for  an  hour  and  have  come  all  this  stretch  without  notic 
ing;  for  I  am  not  myself  in  these  troubled  days."  Then 

24 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

he  went  mumbling  along  to  himself  and  walked  straight 
through  Satan,  just  as  if  nothing  were  there.  It  made  us 
catch  our  breath  to  see  it.  We  had  the  impulse  to  cry 
out,  the  way  you  nearly  always  do  when  a  startling  thing 
happens,  but  something  mysteriously  restrained  us  and 
we  remained  quiet,  only  breathing  fast.  Then  the  trees 
hid  Father  Peter  after  a  little,  and  Satan  said: 
"It  is  as  I  told  you — I  am  only  a  spirit." 
"Yes,  one  perceives  it  now,"  said  Nikolaus,  "but  we 
are  not  spirits.  It  is  plain  he  did  not  see  you,  but  were  we 
invisible,  too?  He  looked  at  us,  but  he  didn't  seem  to  see 


us." 


"No,  none  of  us  was  visible  to  him,  for  I  wished  it  so." 
It  seemed  almost  too  good  to  be  true,  that  we  were 
actually  seeing  these  romantic  and  wonderful  things,  and 
that  it  was  not  a  dream.  And  there  he  sat,  looking  just 
like  anybody — so  natural  and  simple  and  charming,  and 
chatting  along  again  the  same  as  ever,  and — well,  words 
cannot  make  you  understand  what  we  felt.  It  was  an 
ecstasy;  and  an  ecstasy  is  a  thing  that  will  not  go  into 
words;  it  feels  like  music,  and  one  cannot  tell  about  music 
so  that  another  person  can  get  the  feeling  of  it.  He  was 
back  in  the  old  ages  once  more  now,  and  making  them 
live  before  us.  He  had  seen  so  much,  so  much !  It  was  just 
a  wonder  to  look  at  him  and  try  to  think  how  it  must 

seem  to  have  such  experience  behind  one. 
3  25 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

But  it  made  you  seem  sorrowfully  trivial,  and  the 
creature  of  a  day,  and  such  a  short  and  paltry  day,  too. 
And  he  didn't  say  anything  to  raise  up  your  drooping 
pride  —  no,  not  a  word,  jle  always  spoke  of  men  in  the 
same  old  indifferent  way  —  -just  as  one  speaks  of  bricEs" 
anoT  manufe=pft£slmd  such  things;  you  could  see  that  they 
f^^f^^^n^^^^Tt^rk  tn  >n'm?  Qn<*  way  or  the  other.  He 


didn't  mean  to  hurt  us,  you  could  see  that;  just  as  we  don't 
mean  to  insult  a  brick  when  we  disparage  it;  a  brick's 
emotions  are  nothing  to  us  ;  it  never  occurs  to  us  to  think 
whether  it  has  any  or  not. 

Once  when  he  was  bunching  the  most  illustrious  kings 
and  conquerors  and  poets  and  prophets  and  pirates  and 
beggars  together^ustajbrick-gile  —  I  was  shamed  into 
putting  in  a  worofor  man,  and  asked  him  why  he  made 
so  much  difference  between  men  and  himself.  He  had  to 
struggle  with  that  a  moment;  he  didn't  seem  to  understand 
how  I  could  ask  such  a  strange  question.  Then  he  said: 

"The  difference  between  man  and  me?  The  difference 
between  a  mortal  and  an  immortal?  between  a  cloud  and 
a  spirit?"  He  picked  up  a  wood-louse  that  was  creeping 
along  a  piece  of  bark:  "What  is  the  difference  between 
Caesar  and  this?" 

I  said,  "One  cannot  compare  things  which  by  their 
nature  and  by  the  interval  between  them  are  not  com 

parable." 

26 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"You  have  answered  your  own  question,"  he  said, 
will  expand  it.  Man  is  made  of  dirt — I  saw  him  made.  I 
am  not  made  of  dirt.  Man  is  a  museum  of  diseases,  a  home 
of  impurities;  he  comes  to-day  and  is  gone  to-morrow;  he 
begins  as  dirt  and  departs  as  stench;  I  am  of  the  aristoc 
racy  of  the  Imperishables.  £nd  man  has  the.J^om/.Amse. 
You  understand?  He  has  the  MofaTSense.  JThat  would 
seem  to  be  difference  enough  between  us,  all  by  itseltV*  -*•* 

He  stopped  there,  as  if  that  settled  "~£Ke~matter.  I  was 
sorry,  for  at  that  time  I  had  but  a  dim  idea  of  what  the 
Moral  Sense  was.  I  merely  knew  that  we  were  proud  of 
having  it,  and  when  he  talked  like  that  about  it,  it  wounded 
me,  and  I  felt  as  a  girl  feels  who  thinks  her  dearest  finery 
is  being  admired  and  then  overhears  strangers  making  fun 
of  it.  For  a  while  we  were  all  silent,  and  I,  for  one,  was 
depressed.  Then  Satan  began  to  chat  again,  and  soon  he 
was  sparkling  along  in  such  a  cheerful  and  vivacious  vein 
that  my  spirits  rose  once  more.  He  told  some  very  cunning 
things  that  put  us  in  a  gale  of  laughter;  and  when  he  was 
telling  about  the  time  that  Samson  tied  the  torches  to  the 
foxes'  tails  and  set  them  loose  in  the  Philistines'  corn,  and 
Samson  sitting  on  the  fence  slapping  his  thighs  and  laugh 
ing,  with  the  tears  running  down  his  cheeks,  and  lost  his 
balance  and  fell  off  the  fence,  the  memory  of  that  picture 
got  him  to  laughing,  too,  and  we  did  have  a  most  lovely 
\  £^nd  jolly  time.  By  and  by  he  said: 


. 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"I  am  going  on  my  errand  now." 

"Don't!"  we  all  said.  "Don't  go;  stay  with  us.  You 
won't  come  back." 

:<Yes,  I  will;  I  give  you  my  word." 

"When?    To-night?    Say  when." 

"It  won't  be  long.    You  will  see." 

"We  like  you." 

"And  I  you.  And  as  a  proof  of  it  I  will  show  you 
something  fine  to  see.  Usually  when  I  go  I  merely  vanish; 
but  now  I  will  dissolve  myself  and  let  you  see  me  do  it." 

He  stood  up,  and  it  was  quickly  finished.  He  thinned 
away  and  thinned  away  until  he  was  a  soap-bubble,  except 
that  he  kept  his  shape.  You  could  see  the  bushes  through 
him  as  clearly  as  you  see  things  through  a  soap-bubble, 
and  all  over  him  played  and  flashed  the  delicate  iridescent 
colors  of  the  bubble,  and  along  with  them  was  that  thing 
shaped  like  a  window-sash  which  you  always  see  on  the 
globe  of  the  bubble.  You  have  seen  a  bubble  strike  the 
carpet  and  lightly  bound  along  two  or  three  times  before 
it  bursts.  He  did  that.  He  sprang — touched  the  grass — 
bounded — floated  along — touched  again — and  so  on,  and 
presently  exploded — puff!  and  in  his  place  was  vacancy. 

It  was  a  strange  and  beautiful  thing  to  see.  We  did 
not  say  anything,  but  sat  wondering  and  dreaming  and 
blinking;  and  finally  Seppi  roused  up  and  said,  mourn 
fully  sighing: 

28 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"I  suppose  none  of  it  has  happened." 

Nikolaus  sighed  and  said  about  the  same. 

I  was  miserable  to  hear  them  say  it,  for  it  was  the  same 
cold  fear  that  was  in  my  own  mind.  Then  we  saw  poor 
old  Father  Peter  wandering  along  back,  with  his  head 
bent  down,  searching  the  ground.  When  he  was  pretty 
close  to  us  he  looked  up  and  saw  us,  and  said,  "How  long 
have  you  been  here,  boys?" 

"A  little  while,  Father." 

"Then  it  is  since  I  came  by,  and  maybe  you  can  help 
me.  Did  you  come  up  by  the  path?" 

"Yes,  Father." 

"That  is  good.  I  came  the  same  way.  I  have  lost  my 
wallet.  There  wasn't  much  in  it,  but  a  very  little  is  much 
to  me,  for  it  was  all  I  had.  I  suppose  you  haven't  seen 
anything  of  it?" 

"No,  Father,  but  we  will  help  you  hunt." 

"It  is  what  I  was  going  to  ask  you.    Why,  here  it  is!" 

We  hadn't  noticed  it;  yet  there  it  lay,  right  where 
Satan  stood  when  he  began  to  melt — if  he  did  melt  and  it 
wasn't  a  delusion.  Father  Peter  picked  it  up  and  looked 
very  much  surprised. 

"It  is  mine,"  he  said,  "but  not  the  contents.  This  is 
fat;  mine  was  flat;  mine  was  light;  this  is  heavy."  He 
opened  it;  it  was  stuffed  as  full  as  it  could  hold  with  gold 

coins.    He  let  us  gaze  our  fill;   and  of  course  we  did  gaze, 

29 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

for  we  had  never  seen  so  much  money  at  one  time  before. 
All  our  mouths  came  open  to  say  "Satan  did  it!"  but 
nothing  came  out.  There  it  was,  you  see — we  couldn't 
tell  what  Satan  didn't  want  told;  he  had  said  so  himself. 

"Boys,  did  you  do  this?" 

It  made  us  laugh.  And  it  made  him  laugh,  too,  as  soon 
as  he  thought  what  a  foolish  question  it  was. 

"Who  has  been  here?" 

Our  mouths  came  open  to  answer,  but  stood  so  for  a 
moment,  because  we  couldn't  say  "Nobody,"  for  it  wouldn't 
be  true,  and  the  right  word  didn't  seem  to  come;  then  I 
thought  of  the  right  one,  and  said  it: 

"Not  a  human  being." 

"That  is  so,"  said  the  others,  and  let  their  mouths  go 
shut. 

"It  is  not  so,"  said  Father  Peter,  and  looked  at  us  very 
severely.  "I  came  by  here  a  while  ago,  and  there  was  no 
one  here,  but  that  is  nothing;  some  one  has  been  here  since. 
I  don't  mean  to  say  that  the  person  didn't  pass  here  before 
you  came,  and  I  don't  mean  to  say  you  saw  him,  but  some 
one  did  pass,  that  I  know.  On  your  honor — you  saw  no 
one?" 

"Not  a  human  being." 

"That  is  sufficient;  I  know  you  are  telling  me  the  truth." 

He  began  to  count  the  money  on  the  path,  we  on  our 

knees  eagerly  helping  to  stack  it  in  little  piles. 

30 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"It's  eleven  hundred  ducats  odd!"  he  said.  "Oh 
dear!  if  it  were  only  mine — and  I  need  it  so!"  and  his  voice 
broke  and  his  lips  quivered. 

"It  is  yours,  sir!"  we  all  cried  out  at  once,  "every 
heller!" 

"No — it  isn't  mine.  Only  four  ducats  are  mine;  the 
rest  .  .  .!"  He  fell  to  dreaming,  poor  old  soul,  and  caressing 
some  of  the  coins  in  his  hands,  and  forgot  where  he  was, 
sitting  there  on  his  heels  with  his  old  gray  head  bare;  it 
was  pitiful  to  see.  "No,"  he  said,  waking  up,  "it  isn't 
mine.  I  can't  account  for  it.  I  think  some  enemy  ...  it 
must  be  a  trap." 

Nikolaus  said:  "Father  Peter,  with  the  exception  of 
the  astrologer  you  haven't  a  real  enemy  in  the  village— 
nor  Marget,  either.  And  not  even  a  half -enemy  that's  rich 
enough  to  chance  eleven  hundred  ducats  to  do  you  a  mean 
turn.  I'll  ask  you  if  that's  so  or  not?" 

He  couldn't  get  around  that  argument,  and  it  cheered 
him  up.  "But  it  isn't  mine,  you  see — it  isn't  mine,  in  any 


case." 


He  said  it  in  a  wistful  way,  like  a  person  that  wouldn't 
be  sorry,  but  glad,  if  anybody  would  contradict  him. 

"It  is  yours,  Father  Peter,  and  we  are  witness  to  it. 
Aren't  we,  boys?" 

"Yes,  we  are — and  we'll  stand  by  it,  too." 

"Bless  your  hearts,  you  do  almost  persuade  me;    you 

31 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

do,  indeed.  If  I  had  only  a  hundred -odd  ducats  of  it! 
The  house  is  mortgaged  for  it,  and  we've  no  home  for  our 
heads  if  we  don't  pay  to-morrow.  And  that  four  ducats 
is  all  we've  got  in  the — " 

"It's  yours,  every  bit  of  it,  and  you've  got  to  take  it 
— we  are  bail  that  it's  all  right.  Aren't  we,  Theodor? 
Aren't  we,  Seppi?" 

We  two  said  yes,  and  Nikolaus  stuffed  the  money  back 
into  the  shabby  old  wallet  and  made  the  owner  take  it. 
So  he  said  he  would  use  two  hundred  of  it,  for  his  house 
was  good  enough  security  for  that,  and  would  put  the  rest 
at  interest  till  the  rightful  owner  came  for  it;  and  on  our 
side  we  must  sign  a  paper  showing  how  he  got  the  money 
— a  paper  to  show  to  the  villagers  as  proof  that  he  had  not 
got  out  of  his  troubles  dishonestly. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IT  made  immense  talk  next  day,  when  Father  Peter  paid 
Solomon  Isaacs  in  gold  and  left  the  rest  of  the  money 
with  him  at  interest.  Also,  there  was  a  pleasant  change; 
many  people  called  at  the  house  to  congratulate  him,  and 
a  number  of  cool  old  friends  became  kind  and  friendly 
again;  and,  to  top  all,  Marget  was  invited  to  a  party. 

And  there  was  no  mystery;  Father  Peter  told  the  whole 
circumstance  just  as  it  happened,  and  said  he  could  not 
account  for  it,  only  it  was  the  plain  hand  of  Providence, 
so  far  as  he  could  see. 

One  or  two  shook  their  heads  and  said  privately  it 
looked  more  like  the  hand  of  Satan;  and  really  that  seemed 
a  surprisingly  good  guess  for  ignorant  people  like  that. 
Some  came  slyly  buzzing  around  and  tried  to  coax  us  boys 
to  come  out  and  "tell  the  truth";  and  promised  they 
wouldn't  ever  tell,  but  only  wanted  to  know  for  their  own 
satisfaction,  because  the  whole  thing  was  so  curious.  They 
even  wanted  to  buy  the  secret,  and  pay  money  for  it; 
and  if  we  could  have  invented  something  that  would  answer 
— but  we  couldn't;  we  hadn't  the  ingenuity,  so  we  had  to 

let  the  chance  go  by,  and  it  was  a  pity. 

33 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

We  carried  that  secret  around  without  any  trouble,  but 
the  other  one,  the  big  one,  the  splendid  one,  burned  the 
very  vitals  of  us,  it  was  so  hot  to  get  out  and  we  so  hot  to 
let  it  out  and  astonish  people  with  it.  But  we  had  to  keep 
it  in;  in  fact,  it  kept  itself  in.  Satan  said  it  would,  and  it 
did.  We  went  off  every  day  and  got  to  ourselves  in  the 
woods  so  that  we  could  talk  about  Satan,  and  really  that 
was  the  only  subject  we  thought  of  or  cared  anything 
about;  and  day  and  night  we  \vatched  for  him  and  hoped 
he  would  come,  and  wre  got  more  and  more  impatient  all 
the  time.  We  hadn't  any  interest  in  the  other  boys  any 
more,  and  wouldn't  take  part  in  their  games  and  enter 
prises.  They  seemed  so  tame,  after  Satan;  and  their 
cjoings  so  trifling  and  commonplace  after  his  adventures  in 
antiquity  and  the  constellations,  and  his  miracles  and  melt 
ings  and  explosions,  and  all  that. 

During  the  first  day  we  were  in  a  state  of  anxiety  on 
account  of  one  thing,  and  \ve  kept  going  to  Father  Peter's 
house  on  one  pretext  or  another  to  keep  track  of  it.  That 
was  the  gold  coin;  we  were  afraid  it  would  crumble  and 
turn  to  dust,  like  fairy  money.  If  it  did —  But  it  didn't. 
At  the  end  of  the  day  no  complaint  had  been  made  about 
it,  so  after  that  we  were  satisfied  that  it  was  real  gold,  and 
dropped  the  anxiety  out  of  our  minds. 

There  was  a  question  which  we  wanted  to  ask  Father 

Peter,  and  finally  we  went  there  the  second  evening,  a 

34* 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

little  diffidently,  after  drawing  straws,  and  I  asked  it  as 
casually  as  I  could,  though  it  did  not  sound  as  casual  as  I 
wanted,  because  I  didn't  know  how: 

"What  is  the  Moral  Sense,  sir?" 

He  looked  down,  surprised,  over  his  great  spectacles, 
and  said,  "Why,  it  is  the  faculty  which  enables  us  to  dis 
tinguish  good  from  evil." 

It  threw  some  light,  but  not  a  glare,  and  I  was  a  little 
disappointed,  also  to  some  degree  embarrassed.  He  was 
waiting  for  me  to  go  on,  so,  in  default  of  anything  else  to 
say,  I  asked,  "Is  it  valuable?" 

"Valuable?  Heavens!  lad,  it  is  the  one  thing  that  lifts 
man  above  the  beasts  that  perish  and  makes  him  heir  to 
immortality!" 

This  did  not  remind  me  of  anything  further  to  say,  so 
I  got  out,  with  the  other  boys,  and  we  went  away  with  that 
indefinite  sense  you  have  often  had  of  being  filled  but  not 
fatted.  They  wanted  me  to  explain,  but  I  was  tired. 

W7e  passed  out  through  the  parlor,  and  there  was  Marget 
at  the  spinnet  teaching  Marie  Lueger.  So  one  of  the  de 
serting  pupils  was  back;  and  an  influential  one,  too;  the 
others  would  follow.  Marget  jumped  up  and  ran  and 
thanked  us  again,  with  tears  in  her  eyes — this  was  the 
third  time — for  saving  her  and  her  uncle  from  being  turned 
into  the  street,  and  wre  told  her  again  we  hadn't  done  it; 

but  that  was  her  wray,  she .  never  could  be  grateful  enough 

35 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

for  anything  a  person  did  for  her;  so  we  let  her  have  her 
say.  And  as  we  passed  through  the  garden,  there  was 
Wilhelm  Meidling  sitting  there  waiting,  for  it  was  getting 
toward  the  edge  of  the  evening,  and  he  would  be  asking 
Marget  to  take  a  walk  along  the  river  with  him  when  she 
was  done  with  the  lesson.  He  was  a  young  lawyer,  and  suc 
ceeding  fairly  well  and  working  his  way  along,  little  by 
little.  He  was  very  fond  of  Marget,  and  she  of  him.  He 
had  not  deserted  along  with  the  others,  but  had  stood  his 
ground  all  through.  His  faithfulness  was  not  lost  on 
Marget  and  her  uncle.  He  hadn't  so  very  much  talent, 
but  he  was  handsome  and  good,  and  these  are  a  kind  of 
talents  themselves  and  help  along.  He  asked  us  how  the 
lesson  was  getting  along,  and  we  told  him  it  was  about  done. 
And  maybe  it  was  so;  we  didn't  know  anything  about  it, 
but  we  judged  it  would  please  him,  and  it  did,  and  didn't 
\  cost  us  anything. 


CHAPTER   V 

ON  the  fourth  day  comes  the  astrologer  from  his  crum 
bling  old  tower  up  the  valley,  where  he  had  heard  the 
news,  I  reckon.  He  had  a  private  talk  with  us,  and  we 
told  him  what  we  could,  for  we  were  mightily  in  dread  of 
him.  He  sat  there  studying  and  studying  awhile  to  him 
self;  then  he  asked: 

"How  many  ducats  did  you  say?" 

"Eleven  hundred  and  seven,  sir." 

Then  he  said,  as  if  he  were  talking  to  himself:  "It  is 
ver-y  singular.  Yes  .  .  .  very  strange.  A  curious  coinci 
dence."  Then  he  began  to  ask  questions,  and  went  over 
the  whole  ground  from  the  beginning,  we  answering.  By 
and  by  he  said:  "Eleven  hundred  and  six  ducats.  It  is  a 
large  sum." 

"Seven,"  said  Seppi,  correcting  him. 

"Oh,  seven,  was  it?  Of  course  a  ducat  more  or  less 
isn't  of  consequence,  tut  you  said  eleven  hundred  and  six 
before." 

It  would  not  have  been  safe  for  us  to  say  he  was  mis- 

*» 

taken,  but  we  knew  he  was.     Nikolaus  said,   "We  ask 

pardon  for  the  mistake,  but  we  meant  to  say  seven." 

37 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"Oh,  it  is  no  matter,  lad;  it  was  merely  that  I  noticed 
the  discrepancy.  It  is  several  days,  and  you  cannot  be 
expected  to  remember  precisely.  One  is  apt  to  be  inexact 
when  there  is  no  particular  circumstance  to  impress  the 
count  upon  the  memory." 

"But  there  was  one,  sir,"  said  Seppi,  eagerly. 

"What  was  it,  my  son?"  asked  the  astrologer,  indiffer 
ently. 

"First,  we  all  counted  the  piles  of  coin,  each  in  turn, 
and  all  made  it  the  same — eleven  hundred  and  six.  But  I 
had  slipped  one  out,  for  fun,  when  the  count  began,  and 
now  I  slipped  it  back  and  said,  'I  think  there  is  a  mistake 
— there  are  eleven  hundred  and  seven;  let  us  count  again.' 
We  did,  and  of  course  I  was  right.  They  were  astonished; 
then  I  told  how  it  came  about." 

The  astrologer  asked  us  if  this  was  so,  and  we  said  it  was. 

"That  settles  it,"  he  said.  " I  know  the  thief  now.  Ladsy 
the  money  was  stolen." 

Then  he  went  away,  leaving  us  very  much  troubled, 
and  wondering  what  he  could  mean.  In  about  an  hour  we 
found  out;  for  by  that  time  it  was  all  over  the  village  that 
Father  Peter  had  been  arrested  for  stealing  a  great  sum  of 
money  from  the  astrologer.  Everybody's  tongue  was  loose 
and  going.  Many  said  it  was  not  in  Father  Peter's  char 
acter  and  must  be  a  mistake;  but  the  others  shook  their 

heads  and  said  misery  and  want  could  drive  a  suffering 

38 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

man  to  almost  anything.  About  one  detail  there  were  no 
differences;  all  agreed  that  Father  Peter's  account  of  how 
the  money  came  into  his  hands  was  just  about  unbeliev 
able — it  had  such  an  impossible  look.  They  said  it  might 
have  come  into  the  astrologer's  hands  in  some  such  way, 
but  into  Father  Peter's,  never!  Our  characters  began  to 
suffer  now.  We  were  Father  Peter's  only  witnesses;  how 
much  did  he  probably  pay  us  to  back  up  his  fantastic  tale? 
People  talked  that  kind  of  talk  to  us  pretty  freely  and 
frankly,  and  were  full  of  scoffings  when  we  begged  them  to 
believe  really  we  had  told  only  the  truth.  Our  parents 
were  harder  on  us  than  any  one  else.  Our  fathers  said  we 
were  disgracing  our  families,  and  they  commanded  us  to 
purge  ourselves  of  our  lie,  and  there  was  no  limit  to  their 
anger  when  we  continued  to  say  we  had  spoken  true.  Our 
mothers  cried  over  us  and  begged  us  to  give  back  our 
bribe  and  get  back  our  honest  names  and  save  our  families 
from  shame,  and  come  out  and  honorably  confess.  And 
at  last  we  were  so  worried  and  harassed  that  we  tried  to 
tell  the  whole  thing,  Satan  and  all — but  no,  it  wouldn't 
come  out.  We  were  hoping  and  longing  all  the  time  that 
Satan  would  come  and  help  us  out  of  our  trouble,  but  there 
was  no  sign  of  him. 

Within   an  hour   after  the  astrologer's  talk  with  us, 
Father  Peter  was  in  prison  and  the  money  sealed  up  and 

in  the  hands  of  the  officers  of  the  law.    The  money  was  in 

39 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

a  bag,  and  Solomon  Isaacs  said  he  had  not  touched  it  since 
he  had  counted  it;  his  oath  was  taken  that  it  was  the  same 
money,  and  that  the  amount  was  eleven  hundred  and  seven 
ducats.  Father  Peter  claimed  trial  by  the  ecclesiastical 
court,  but  our  other  priest,  Father  Adolf,  said  an  ecclesi 
astical  court  hadn't  jurisdiction  over  a  suspended  priest. 
The  bishop  upheld  him.  That  settled  it;  the  case  would 
go  to  trial  in  the  civil  court.  The  court  would  not  sit  for 
some  time  to  come.  Wilhelm  Meidling  would  be  Father 
Peter's  lawyer  and  do  the  best  he  could,  of  course,  but  he 
told  us  privately  that  a  weak  case  on  his  side  and  all  the 
power  and  prejudice  on  the  other  made  the  outlook  bad. 

So  Marget's  new  happiness  died  a  quick  death.  No 
friends  came  to  condole  with  her,  and  none  were  expected; 
an  unsigned  note  withdrew  her  invitation  to  the  party. 
There  would  be  no  scholars  to  take  lessons.  How  could 
she  support  herself?  She  could  remain  in  the  house,  for 
the  mortgage  was  paid  off,  though  the  government  and 
not  poor  Solomon  Isaacs  had  the  mortgage-money  in  its 
grip  for  the  present.  Old  Ursula,  who  was  cook,  chamber 
maid,  housekeeper,  laundress,  and  everything  else  for 
Father  Peter,  and  had  been  Marget's  nurse  in  earlier  years, 
said  God  would  provide.  But  she  said  that  from  habit, 
for  she  was  a  good  Christian.  She  meant  to  help  in  the 
providing,  to  make  sure,  if  she  could  find  a  way. 

We  boys  wanted  to  go  and  see  Marget  and  show  friend- 

40 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

liness  for  her,  but  our  parents  were  afraid  of  offending  the 
community  and  wouldn't  let  us.  The  astrologer  was  going 
around  inflaming  everybody  against  Father  Peter,  and  say 
ing  he  was  an  abandoned  thief  and  had  stolen  eleven  hundred 
and  seven  gold  ducats  from  him.  He  said  he  knew  he  was  a 
thief  from  that  fact,  for  it  was  exactly  the  sum  he  had  lost 
and  which  Father  Peter  pretended  he  had  "found." 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  fourth  day  after  the  catastrophe 
old  Ursula  appeared  at  our  house  and  asked  for  some  wash 
ing  to  do,  and  begged  my  mother  to  keep  this  secret,  to 
save  Marget's  pride,  who  would  stop  this  project  if  she 
found  it  out,  yet  Marget  had  not  enough  to  eat  and  was 
growing  weak.  Ursula  was  growing  weak  herself,  and 
showed  it;  and  she  ate  of  the  food  that  was  offered  her 
like  a  starving  person,  but  could  not  be  persuaded  to  carry 
any  home,  for  Marget  would  not  eat  charity  food.  She 
took  some  clothes  down  to  the  stream  to  wash  them,  but 
we  saw  from  the  window  that  handling  the  bat  was  too 
much  for  her  strength;  so  she  was  called  back  and  a  trifle 
of  money  offered  her,  which  she  was  afraid  to  take  lest 
Marget  should  suspect;  then  she  took  it,  saying  she  would 
explain  that  she  found  it  in  the  road.  To  keep  it  from  being 
a  lie  and  damning  her  soul,  she  got  me  to  drop  it  while  she 
watched;  then  she  went  along  by  there  and  found  it,  and 
exclaimed  with  surprise  and  joy,  and  picked  it  up  and 

went  her  way.    Like  the  rest  of  the  village,  she  could  tell 
4  41 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

every-day  lies  fast  enough  and  without  taking  any  precau 
tions  against  fire  and  brimstone  on  their  account;  but 
this  was  a  new  kind  of  lie,  and  it  had  a  dangerous  look  be 
cause  she  hadn't  had  any  practice  in  it.  After  a  week's 
practice  it  wouldn't  have  given  her  any  trouble.  It  is  the 
way  we  are  made. 

I  was  in  trouble,  for  how  would  Marget  live?  Ursula 
could  not  find  a  coin  in  the  road  every  day — perhaps  not 
even  a  second  one.  And  I  was  ashamed,  too,  for  not  hav 
ing  been  near  Marget,  and  she  so  in  need  of  friends;  but 
that  was  my  parents'  fault,  not  mine,  and  I  couldn't  help  it. 

I  was  walking  along  the  path,  feeling  very  down 
hearted,  when  a  most  cheery  and  tingling  freshening-up 
sensation  went  rippling  through  me,  and  I  was  too  glad 
for  any  words,  for  I  knew  by  that  sign  that  Satan  was  by. 
I  had  noticed  it  before.  Next  moment  he  was  alongside 
of  me  and  I  was  telling  him  all  my  trouble  and  what  had 
been  happening  to  Marget  and  her  uncle.  While  we  were 
talking  we  turned  a  curve  and  saw  old  Ursula  resting  in 
the  shade  of  a  tree,  and  she  had  a  lean  stray  kitten  in  her 
lap  and  was  petting  it.  I  asked  her  where  she  got  it,  and 
she  said  it  came  out  of  the  woods  and  followed  her;  and 
she  said  it  probably  hadn't  any  mother  or  any  friends  and 
she  was  going  to  take  it  home  and  take  care  of  it.  Satan 
said: 

"I  understand  you  are  very  poor.    Why  do  you  want 

42  " 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

to  add  another  mouth  to  feed?    Why  don't  you  give  it  to 
some  rich  person?" 

Ursula  bridled  at  this  and  said:  "Perhaps  you  would 
like  to  have  it.  You  must  be  rich,  with  your  fine  clothes 
and  quality  airs."  Then  she  sniffed  and  said:  "Give  it  to 
the  rich — the  idea!  The  rich  don't  care  for  anybody  but 
themselves;  it's  only  the  poor  that  have  feeling  for  the 
poor,  and  help  them.  The  poor  and  God.  God  will  provide 
for  this  kitten." 

"What  makes  you  think  so?" 

Ursula's  eyes  snapped  with  anger.  "Because  I  know  it!" 
she  said.  "Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  His 
seeing  it." 

But  it  falls,  just  the  same.     What  good  is  seeing  it 


Old  Ursula's  jaws  worked,  but  she  could  not  get  any 
word  out  for  the  moment,  she  was  so  horrified.  When  she 
got  her  tongue  she  stormed  out,  "Go  about  your  business, 
you  puppy,  or  I  will  take  a  stick  to  you!" 

I  could  not  speak,  I  was  so  scared.  I  knew  that  with 
his  notions  about  the  human  race  Satan  would  consider  it 
a  matter  of  no  consequence  to  strike  her  dead,  there  being 
"plenty  more";  but  my  tongue  stood  still,  I  could  give 
her  no*  warning.  But  nothing  happened;  Satan  remained 
tranquil — tranquil  and  indifferent.  I  suppose  he  could  not 

be  insulted  by  Ursula  any  more  than  the  king  could  be 

43 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

insulted  by  a  tumble-bug.  The  old  woman  jumped  to  her 
feet  when  she  made  her  remark,  and  did  it  as  briskly  as  a 
young  girl.  It  had  been  many  years  since  she  had  done  the 
like  of  that.  That  was  Satan's  influence;  he  was  a  fresh 
breeze  to  the  weak  and  the  sick,  wherever  he  came.  His 
presence  affected  even  the  lean  kitten,  and  it  skipped  to 
the  ground  and  began  to  chase  a  leaf.  This  surprised 
Ursula,  and  she  stood  looking  at  the  creature  and  nodding 
her  head  wonderingly,  her  anger  quite  forgotten. 

"What's  come  over  it?"  she  said.  "Awhile  ago  it  could 
hardly  walk." 

"You  have  not  seen  a  kitten  of  that  breed  before," 
said  Satan. 

Ursula  was  not  proposing  to  be  friendly  with  the  mock 
ing  stranger,  and  she  gave  him  an  ungentle  look  and  re 
torted:  "Who  asked  you  to  come  here  and  pester  me,  I'd 
like  to  know?  And  what  do  you  know  about  what  I've 
seen  and  what  I  haven't  seen?" 

;'You  haven't  seen  a  kitten  with  the  hair-spines  on  its 
tongue  pointing  to  the  front,  have  you?" 

"No — nor  you,  either." 

"Well,  examine  this  one  and  see." 

Ursula  was  become  pretty  spry,  but  the  kitten  was 
spryer,  and  she  could  not  catch  it,  and  had  to  give  it  up. 
Then  Satan  said: 

"Give  it  a  name,  and  maybe  it  will  come." 

44 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

Ursula  tried  several  names,  but  the  kitten  was  not  in 
terested. 

"Call  it  Agnes.    Try  that." 

The  creature  answered  to  the  name  and  came.  Ursula 
examined  its  tongue.  "Upon  my  word,  it's  true!"  she  said. 
"I  have  not  seen  this  kind  of  a  cat  before.  Is  it  yours?" 

"No." 

"Then  how  did  you  know  its  name  so  pat?" 

"Because  all  cats  of  that  breed  are  named  Agnes; 
they  will  not  answer  to  any  other." 

Ursula  was  impressed.  "It  is  the  most  wonderful  thing!" 
Then  a  shadow  of  trouble  came  into  her  face,  for  her  super 
stitions  were  aroused,  and  she  reluctantly  put  the  creature 
down,  saying:  "I  suppose  I  must  let  it  go;  I  am  not  afraid 
— no,  not  exactly  that,  though  the  priest — well,  I've  heard 
people — indeed,  many  people  .  .  .  And,  besides,  it  is  quite 
well  now  and  can  take  care  of  itself."  She  sighed,  and  turned 
to  go,  murmuring:  "It  is  such  a  pretty  one,  too,  and  would 
be  such  company — and  the  house  is  so  sad  and  lonesome 
these  troubled  days.  .  .  .  Miss  Marget  so  mournful  and  just 
a  shadow,  and  the  old  master  shut  up  in  jail." 

"It  seems  a  pity  not  to  keep  it,"  said  Satan. 

Ursula  turned  quickly — just  as  if  she  were  hoping  some 
one  would  encourage  her. 

"Why?"  she  asked,  wistfully. 

"Because  this  breed  brings  luck." 

45 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"Does  it?  Is  it  true?  Young  man,  do  you  know  it 
to  be  true?  How  does  it  bring  luck?" 

"Well,  it  brings  money,  anyway." 

Ursula  looked  disappointed.  "Money?  A  cat  bring 
money?  The  idea!  You  could  never  sell  it  here;  people 
do  not  buy  cats  here;  one  can't  even  give  them  away." 
She  turned  to  go. 

"I  don't  mean  sell  it.  I  mean  have  an  income  from  it. 
This  kind  is  called  the  Lucky  Cat.  Its  owner  finds  four 
silver  groschen  in  his  pocket  every  morning. 

I  saw  the  indignation  rising  in  the  old  woman's  face. 
She  was  insulted.  This  boy  was  making  fun  of  her.  That 
wras  her  thought.  She  thrust  her  hands  into  her  pockets 
and  straightened  up  to  give  him  a  piece  of  her  mind.  Her 
temper  was  all  up,  and  hot.  Her  mouth  came  open  and 
let  out  three  words  of  a  bitter  sentence,  .  .  .  then  it  fell 
silent,  and  the  anger  in  her  face  turned  to  surprise  or  wonder 
or  fear,  or  something,  and  she  slowly  brought  out  her  hands 
from  her  pockets  and  opened  them  and  held  them  so.  In 
one  was  my  piece  of  money,  in  the  other  lay  four  silver 
groshchen.  She  gazed  a  little  while,  perhaps  to  see  if  the 
groschen  would  vanish  away;  then  she  said,  fervently: 

"It's  true — it's  true — and  I'm  ashamed  and  beg  for 
giveness,  O  dear  master  and  benefactor!"  And  she  ran  to* 
Satan  and  kissed  his  hand,  over  and  over  again,  according 

to  the  Austrian  custom. 

46 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

In  her  heart  she  probably  believed  it  was  a  witch-cat 
and  an  agent  of  the  Devil;  but  no  matter,  it  was  all  the 
more  certain  to  be  able  to  keep  its  contract  and  furnish 
a  daily  good  living  for  the  family,  for  in  matters  of  finance 
even  the  piousest  of  our  peasants  would  have  more  confi 
dence  in  an  arrangement  with  the  Devil  than  with  an  arch 
angel.  Ursula  started  homeward,  with  Agnes  in  her  arms, 
and  I  said  I  wished  I  had  her  privilege  of  seeing  Marget. 

Then  I  caught  my  breath,  for  we  were  there.  There  in 
the  parlor,  and  Marget  standing  looking  at  us,  astonished. 
She  was  feeble  and  pale,  but  I  knew  that  those  conditions 
would  not  last  in  Satan's  atmosphere,  and  it  turned  out 
so.  I  introduced  Satan — that  is,  Philip  Traum — and  we 
sat  down  and  talked.  There  was  no  constraint.  We  were 
simple  folk,  in  our  village,  and  wThen  a  stranger  was  a 
pleasant  person  we  were  soon  friends.  Marget  wondered 
how  we  got  in  without  her  hearing  us.  Traum  said  the 
door  was  open,  and  we  walked  in  and  waited  until  she 
should  turn  around  and  greet  us.  This  was  not  true;  no 
door  was  open;  we  entered  through  the  walls  or  the  roof 
or  down  the  chimney,  or  somehow;  but  no  matter,  what 
Satan  wished  a  person  to  believe,  the  person  was  sure  to 
believe,  and  so  Marget  was  quite  satisfied  with  that  ex 
planation.  And  then  the  main  part  of  her  mind  was  on 
Traum,  anyway;  she  couldn't  keep  her  eyes  off  him,  he 

was  so  beautiful.    That  gratified  me,  and  made  me  proud. 

47 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

I  hoped  he  would  show  off  some,  but  he  didn't.  He  seemed 
only  interested  in  being  friendly  and  telling  lies.  He  said 
he  was  an  orphan.  That  made  Marget  pity  him.  The 
water  came  into  her  eyes.  He  said  he  had  never  known 
his  mamma;  she  passed  away  while  he  was  a  young  thing; 
and  said  his  papa  was  in  shattered  health,  and  had  no 
property  to  speak  of — in  fact,  none  of  any  earthly  value 
— but  he  had  an  uncle  in  business  down  in  the  tropics, 
and  he  was  very  well  off  and  had  a  monopoly,  and  it  was 
from  this  uncle  that  he  drew  his  support.  The  very  men 
tion  of  a  kind  uncle  was  enough  to  remind  Marget  of  her 
own,  and  her  eyes  filled  again.  She  said  she  hoped  their  two 
uncles  would  meet,  some  day.  It  made  me  shudder.  Philip 
said  he  hoped  so,  too;  and  that  made  me  shudder  again. 

" Maybe  they  will,"  said  Marget.     "Does  your  uncle 
travel  much?" 

"  Oh  yes,  he  goes  all  about;  he  has  business  everywhere." 
And  so  they  went  on  chatting,  and  poor  Marget  forgot 
her  sorrows  for  one  little  while,  anyway.  It  was  probably 
the  only  really  bright  and  cheery  hour  she  had  known 
lately.  I  saw  she  liked  Philip,  and  I  knew  she  would. 
And  when  he  told  her  he  was  studying  for  the  ministry 
I  could  see  that  she  liked  him  better  than  ever.  And  then, 
when  he  promised  to  get  her  admitted  to  the  jail  so  that 
she  could  see  her  uncle,  that  was  the  capstone.  He  said 

he  would  give  the  guards  a  little  present,  and  she  must 

48 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

always  go  in  the  evening  after  dark,  and  say  nothing, 
"but  just  show  this  paper  and  pass  in,  and  show  it  again 
when  you  come  out" —  and  he  scribbled  some  queer  marks 
on  the  paper  and  gave  it  to  her,  and  she  was  ever  so  thank 
ful,  and  right  away  was  in  a  fever  for  the  sun  to  go  down; 
for  in  that  old,  cruel  time  prisoners  were  not  allowed  to 
see  their  friends,  and  sometimes  they  spent  years  in  the 
jails  without  ever  seeing  a  friendly  face.  I  judged  that  the 
marks  on  the  paper  were  an  enchantment,  and  that  the 
guards  would  not  know  what  they  were  doing,  nor  have 
any  memory  of  it  afterward;  and  that  was  indeed  the  way 
of  it.  Ursula  put  her  head  in  at  the  door  now  and  said : 

"Supper's  ready,  miss."  Then  she  saw  us  and  looked 
frightened,  and  motioned  me  to  come  to  her,  which  I  did, 
and  she  asked  if  we  had  told  about  the  cat.  I  said  no,  and 
she  was  relieved,  and  said  please  don't;  for  if  Miss  Marget 
knew,  she  would  think  it  was  an  unholy  cat  and  would 
send  for  a  priest  and  have  its  gifts  all  purified  out  of  it, 
and  then  there  wouldn't  be  any  more  dividends.  So  I  said 
we  wouldn't  tell,  and  she  was  satisfied.  Then  I  was  be 
ginning  to  say  good-by  to  Marget,  but  Satan  interrupted 
and  said,  ever  so  politely — well,  I  don't  remember  just  the 
words,  but  anyway  he  as  good  as  invited  himself  to  supper, 
and  me,  too.  Of  course  Marget  was  miserably  embarrassed, 
for  she  had  no  reason  to  suppose  there  would  be  half  enough 

for  a  sick  bird.     Ursula  heard  him,  and  she  came  straight 

49 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

into  the  room,  not  a  bit  pleased.  At  first  she  was  astonished 
to  see  Marget  looking  so  fresh  and  rosy,  and  said  so;  then 
she  spoke  up  in  her  native  tongue,  which  was  Bohemian, 
and  said — as  I  learned  afterward — "Send  him  away,  Miss 
Marget;  there's  not  victuals  enough." 

Before  Marget  could  speak,  Satan  had  the  word,  and 
was  talking  back  at  Ursula  in  her  own  language — which 
was  a  surprise  to  her,  and  for  her  mistress,  too.  He  said, 
"Didn't  I  see  you  down  the  road  awhile  ago?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Ah,  that  pleases  me;   I  see  you  remember  me."    He 
stepped  to  her  and  whispered:    "I  told  you  it  is  a  Lucky 
Cat.    Don't  be  troubled;  it  will  provide." 
-ti        That  sponged  the  slate  of  Ursula's  feelings  clean  of  its 
I  anxieties,  and  a  deep,  financial  joy  shone  in  heroes.    The* 
cat's  value  was  augmenting.    It  was  getting  full 'time  for 
Marget  to  take  some  sort  of  notice  of  Satan's  invitation, 
and  she  did  it  in  the  best  way,  the  honest  way  that  was 
natural  to  her.    She  said  she  had  little  to  offer,  but  that  we^ 
were  welcome  if  we  would  share  it  with  her. 

We  had  supper  in  the  kitchen,  and  Ursula  waited  at 
table.  A  small  fish  was  in  the  frying-pan,  crisp  and  brown 
and  tempting,  and  one  could  see  that  Marget  was  not  ex 
pecting  such  respectable  food  as  this.  Ursula  brought  it, 
and  Marget  divided  it  between  Satan  and  me,  declining 

to  take  any  of  it  herself;  and  was  beginning  to  s^  she  did 

50 


Painting  by  N.  C.  Wyeth  Illustration  for  "  The   Mysterious  Stranger  " 

ON    THE    FOURTH    DAY    COMES    THE    ASTROLOGER    FROM    HIS    CRUMBLING    OLD    TOWER 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

not  care  for  fish  to-day,  but  she  did  not  finish  the  remark. 
It  was  because  she  noticed  that  another  fish  had  appeared 
in  the  pan.  She  looked  surprised,  but  did  not  say  anything. 
She  probably  meant  to  inquire  of  Ursula  about  this  later. 
There  were  other  surprises:  flesh  and  game  and  wines  and 
fruits — things  which  had  been  strangers  in  that  house  lately ; 
but  Marget  made  no  exclamations,  and  now  even  looked 
unsurprised,  which  was  Satan's  influence,  of  course.  Satan 
talked  right  along,  and  was  entertaining,  and  made  the 
time  pass  pleasantly  and  cheerfully;  and  although  he  told 
a  good  many  lies,  it  was  no  harm  in  him,  for  he  was  only  an 
angel  and  did  not  know  any  better.  They  do  not  know 
right  from  wrong;  I  knew  this,  because  I  remembered  what 
he  had  said  about  it.  He  got  on  the  good  side  of  Ursula. 
He  praised  her  to  Marget,  confidentially,  but  speaking  just 
loud  enough  for  Ursula  to  hear.  He  said  she  was  a  fine 
woman,  and  he  hoped  some  day  to  bring  her  and  his  uncle 
together.  Very  soon  Ursula  was  mincing  and  simpering  \ 
around  in  a  ridiculous,  girly  way,  and  smoothing  out  her/ 
gown  and  prinking  at  ierself  like  a  foolish  old  hen,  and  all , 
the  time  pretending  she  was  not  hearing  what  Satan  was 
saying.  I  was  ashamed,  for  it  showed  us  to  be  what  Satan 
considered  us,  a  silly  race  and  trivial.  Satan  said  his  uncle 
entertained  a  great  deal,  and  to  have  a  clever  woman  pre 
siding  over  the  festivities  would  double  the  attractions  of 
the  place. 

51 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"But  your  uncle  is  a  gentleman,  isn't  he?"  asked  Marget., 

"Yes,"  said  Satan,  indifferently;  "some  even  call  him 
a  Prince,  out  of  compliment,  but  he  is  not  bigoted;  to 
him  personal  merit  is  everything,  rank  nothing." 

My  hand  was  hanging  down  by  my  chair;  Agnes  came 
along  and  licked  it;  by  this  act  a  secret  was  revealed.  I 
started  to  say,  "It  is  all  a  mistake;  this  is  just  a  common,, 
ordinary  cat;  the  hair-needles  on  her  tongue  point  inward, 
not  outward."  But  the  words  did  not  come,  because  they 
couldn't.  Satan  smiled  upon  me,  and  I  understood. 

When  it  was  dark  Marget  took  food  and  wine  and  fruit,, 
in  a  basket,  and  hurried  away  to  the  jail,  and  Satan  and 
I  walked  toward  my  home.  I  was  thinking  to  myself  that 
I  should  like  to  see  what  the  inside  of  the  jail  was  like; 
Satan  overheard  the  thought,  and  the  next  moment  we 
were  in  the  jail.  We  were  in  the  torture-chamber,  Satan 

said.    The  rack  was  there,  and  the  other  instruments,  and 

( 

there  was  a  smoky  lantern  or  two  hanging  on  the  walls  and 
helping  to  make  the  place  look  dim  and  dreadful.  There 
were  people  there — and  executioners — but  as  they  took 
no  notice  of  us,  it  meant  that  we  were  invisible.  A  young 
man  lay  bound,  and  Satan  said  he  was  suspected  of  being 
a  heretic,  and  the  executioners  were  about  to  inquire  into 
it.  They  asked  the  man  to  confess  to  the  charge,  and  he 
said  he  could  not,  for  it  was  not  true.  Then  they  drove 

splinter  after  splinter  under  his  nails,  and  he  shrieked  with 

52 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

the  pain.  Satan  was  not  disturbed,  but  I  could  not  endure 
it,  and  had  to  be  whisked  out  of  there.  I  was  faint  and  sick, 
but  the  fresh  air  revived  me,  and  we  walked  toward  my 
home.  I  said  it  was  a  brutal  thing.  / 

"No,  it  was  a  human  thing.  You  should  not  insult  the7)' 
^brutes  by  such  a  misuse  of  that  word;  they  have  not  de-/ 
/  served  it,"  and  he  went  on  talking  like  that.  "It  is  like 
your  paltry  race — always  lying,  always  claiming  virtues 
hietuA  hasn't  got,  always  denying  them  to  the  higher 
animalsj  which  alone  possess  them.  No  brute  ever  does  a 
cruel  thing — that  is  the  monopoly  of  those  with  the  Moral 
Sense.  When  a  brute  inflicts  pain  he  does  it  innocently; 
it  is  not  wrong;  for  him  there  is  no  such  thing  as  wrong. 
AnoV  he  does  not  inflict  pain  for  the  pleasure  of  inflicting 
it — only  man  does  that.  Inspired  by  that  mongrel  Moral 
Sense  of  his  I  A  sense  whose  function  is  to  distinguish  be 
tween  right  and  wrong,  with  liberty  to  choose  which  of 
them  he  will  do^'Now  what  advantage  can  he  get  out  of 
that?  He  is  always  choosing,  and  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten 
he  prefers  the  wrong.  There  shouldn't  be  any  wrong;  and 
without  the  Moral  Sense  there  couldn't  be  any.  And  yet 
Jbe  is  such  an  unreasoning  creature  that  he  is  not  able  to 
perceive  that  the  Moral  Sense  degrades  him  to  the  bottom 
layer  of  animated  beings  and  is  a  shameful  possession. 
Are  you  feeling  better?  Let  me  show  you  something." 


CHAPTER  VI 

IN  a  moment  we  were  in  a  French  village.  We  walked 
through  a  great  factory  of  some  sort,  where  men  and 
women  and  little  children  were  toiling  in  heat  and  dirt  and 
a  fog  of  dust;  and  they  were  clothed  in  rags,  and  drooped 
at  their  work,  for  they  'were  worn  and  half  starved,  and 
weak  and  drowsy.  Satan  said: 

"It  is  some  more  Moral  Sense.  The  proprietors  are 
rich,  and  very  holy;  but  the  wage  they  pay  to  these  poor 
brothers  and  sisters  of  theirs  is  only  enough  to  keep  them 
from  dropping  dead  with  hunger.  The  work-hours  are 
fourteen  per  day,  winter  and  summer — from  six  in  the 
morning  till  eight  at  night — little  children/and  all.  And 
they  walk  to  and  from  the  pigsties  which  they  inhabit — 
four  miles  each  way,  through  mud  and  slush,  rain,  snow, 
sleet,  and  storm,  daily,  year  in  and  year  out.  They  get 
four  hours  of  sleep.  They  kennel  together,  three  families 
in  a  room,  in  unimaginable  filth  and  stench;  and  disease 
comes,  and  they  die  off  like  flies.  Have  they  committed 
a  crime,  these  mangy  things?  No.  What  have  they  done, 

that  they  are  punished  so?    Nothing  at  all,  except  getting 

54 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

themselves  born  into  your  foolish  race.  You  have  seen 
how  they  treat  a  misdoer  there  in  the  jail;  now  you  see 
how  they  treat  the  innocent  and  the  worthy.  Is  your  race 
logical?  Are  these  ill-smelling  innocents  better  off  than 
that  heretic?  Indeed,  no;  his  punishment  is  trivial  com 
pared  with  theirs.  They  broke  him  on  the  wheel  and 
smashed  him  to  rags  and  pulp  after  we  left,  and  he  is  dead 
now,  and  free  of  your  precious  race;  but  these  poor  slaves 
here — why,  they  have  been  dying  for  years,  and  some  of 
them  will  not  escape  from  life  for  years  to  come.  It  is  the 
Moral  Sense  which  teaches  the  factory  proprietors  the  dif 
ference  between  right  and  wrong — you  perceive  the  result. 
They  think  themselves  better  than  dogs.  Ah,  you  are  such 
an  illogical,  unreasoning  race!  And  paltry — oh,  unspeak 
ably!"  ' 

Then  he  dropped  all  seriousness  and  just  overstrained 
himself  making  fun  of  us,  and  deriding  our  pride  in  our 
warlike  deeds,  our  great  heroes,  our  imperishable  fames, 
our  mighty  kings,  our  ancient  aristocracies,  our  venerable 
history — and  laughed  and  laughed  till  it  was  enough  to 
make  a  person  sick  to  hear  him;  and  finally  he  sobered  a 
little  and  said,  "But,  after  all,  it  is  not  all  ridiculous; 
there  is  a  sort  of  pathos  about  it  when  one  remembers  how 
few  are  your  days,  how  childish  your  pomps,  and  what 
shadows  you  are!" 

"Presently  all  things  vanished  suddenly  from  my  sight, 

55 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

and  I  knew  what  it  meant.  The  next  moment  we  were 
walking  along  in  our  village;  and  down  toward  the  river 
I  saw  the  twinkling  lights  of  the  Golden  Stag.  Then  in 
the  dark  I  heard  a  joyful  cry: 

"He's  come  again!" 

It  was  Seppi  Wohlmeyer.  He  had  felt  his  blood  leap 
and  his  spirits  rise  in  a  way  that  could  mean  only  one  thing, 
and  he  knew  Satan  was  near,  although  it  was  too  dark  to 
see  him.  He  came  to  us,  and  we  walked  along  together, 
and  Seppi  poured  out  his  gladness  like  water.  It  was  as 
if  he  were  a  lover  and  had  found  his  sweetheart  who  had 
been  lost.  Seppi  was  a  smart  and  animated  boy,  and  had 
enthusiasm  and  expression,  and  was  a  contrast  to  Nikolaus 
and  me.  He  was  full  of  the  last  new  mystery,  now — the 
disappearance  of  Hans  Oppert,  the  village  loafer.  People 
were  beginning  to  be  curious  about  it,  he  said.  He  did  not 
say  anxious — curious  was  the  right  word,  and  strong 
enough.  No  one  had  seen  Hans  for  a  couple  of  days. 

"Not  since  he  did  that  brutal  thing,  you  know,"  he 
said. 

"What  brutal  thing?"    It  was  Satan  that  asked. 

"Well,  he  is  always  clubbing  his  dog,  which  is  a  good 
dog,  and  his  only  friend,  and  is  faithful,  and  loves  him, 
and  does  no  one  any  harm;  and  two  days  ago  he  was  at  it 
again,  just  for  nothing — just  for  pleasure — and  the  dog 

was  howling  and  begging,  and  Theodor  and  I  begged,  too, 

56 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

but  he  threatened  us,  and  struck  the  dog  again  with  all  his 
might  and  knocked  one  of  his  eyes  out,  and  he  said  to  us, 
'There,  I  hope  you  are  satisfied  now;  that's  what  you  have 
got  for  him  by  your  damned  meddling' — and  he  laughed, 
the  heartless  brute."  Seppi's  voice  trembled  with  pity 
and  anger.  I  guessed  what  Satan  would  say,  and  he  said 
it. 

"There  is  that  misused  word  again — that  shabby  slan 
der.  Brutes  do  not  act  like  that,  but  only  men." 

"Well,  it  was  inhuman,  anyway." 

"No,  it  wasn't,  Seppi;  it  was  human — quite  distinctly 
human.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  hear  you  libel  the  higher 
animals  by  attributing  to  them  dispositions  which  they  are 
free  from,  and  which  are  found  nowhere  but  in  the  human 
heart.  None  of  the  higher  animals  is  tainted  with  the 
disease  called  the  Moral  Sense.  Purify  your  language, 
Seppi;  drop  those  lying  phrases  out  of  it." 

He  spoke  pretty  sternly — for  him — and  I  was  sorry  I 
hadn't  warned  Seppi  to  be  more  particular  about  the  word 
he  used.  I  knew  how  he  was  feeling.  He  would  not  want 
to  offend  Satan;  he  would  rather  offend  all  his  kin.  There 
wras  an  uncomfortable  silence,  but  relief  soon  came,  for 
that  poor  dog  came  along  now,  with  his  eye  hanging  down, 
and  went  straight  to  Satan,  and  began  to  moan  and  mutter 
brokenly,  and  Satan  began  to  answer  in  the  same  way, 

and  it  was  plain  that  they  wrere  talking  together  in  the  dog 
5  57 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

language.  We  all  sat  down  in  the  grass,  in  the  moonlight, 
for  the  clouds  were  breaking  away  now,  and  Satan  took 
the  dog's  head  in  his  lap  and  put  the  eye  back  in  its  place, 
and  the  dog  was  comfortable,  and  he  wagged  his  tail  and 
licked  Satan's  hand,  and  looked  thankful  and  said  the  same; 
I  knew  he  wras  saying  it,  though  I  did  not  understand  the 
words.  Then  the  two  talked  together  a  bit,  and  Satan  said: 

"He  says  his  master  was  drunk." 

:<Yes,  he  was,"  said  we. 

"And  an  hour  later  he  fell  over  the  precipice  there  be 
yond  the  Cliff  Pasture." 

"We  know  the  place;  it  is  three  miles  from  here." 

"And  the  dog  has  been  often  to  the  village,  begging 
people  to  go  there,  but  he  was  only  driven  away  and  not 
listened  to." 

We  remembered  it,  but  hadn't  understood  what  he 
wanted. 

"He  only  wanted  help  for  the  man  who  had  misused 

him,  and  he  thought  only  of  that,  and  has  had  no  food  nor 

sought  any.     He  has  watched  by  his  master  two  nights. 

What  do  you  think  of  your  race?    Is  heaven  reserved  for 

it,  and  this  dog  ruled  out,  as  your  teachers  tell  you?    Can 

I   your  race  add  anything  to  this  dog's  stock  of  morals  and 

j  magnanimities?"     He  spoke  to  the  creature,  who  jumped 

i  up,  eager  and  happy,  and  apparently  ready  for  orders  and 

\  impatient  to  execute  them.    "Get  some  men;  go  with  the 

58 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

dog — he  will  show  you  that  carrion;    and  take  a  priest 
along  to  arrange  about  insurance,  for  death  is  near." 

With  the  last  word  he  vanished,  to  our  sorrow  and  dis 
appointment.  We  got  the  men  and  Father  Adolf,  and  we 
saw  the  man  die.  Nobody  cared  but  the  dog;  he  mourned 
and  grieved,  and  licked  the  dead  face,  and  could  not  be 
comforted.  We  buried  him  where  he  was,  and  without  a 
coffin,  for  he  had  no  money,  and  no  friend  but  the  dog. 
If  we  had  been  an  hour  earlier  the  priest  would  have  been 
in  time  to  send  that  poor  creature  to  heaven,  but  now  he 
\  was  gone  down  into  the  awful  fires,  to  burn  forever.  It 
^•seemed  such  a  pity  that  in  a  world  where  so  many  people 
have  difficulty  to  put  in  their  time,  one  little  hour  could 
not  have  been  spared  for  this  poor  creature  who  needed  it 
so  much,  and  to  whom  it  would  have  made  the  difference 
>l!S?trween  eternal  joy  and  eternal  pain.  It  gave  an  appalling 
/  idea  of  the  value  of  an  hour,  and  I  thought  I  could  never 
(  waste  one  again  without  remorse  and  terror.  Seppi  was 
depressed  and  grieved,  and  said  it  must  be  so  much  better 
to  be  a  dog  and  not  run  such  awful  risks.  We  took  this 
one  home  with  us  and  kept  him  for  our  own.  Seppi  had 
a  very  good  thought  as  we  were  walking  along,  and  it  cheered 
us  up  and  made  us  feel  much  better.  He  said  the  dog  had 
forgiven  the  man  that  had  wronged  him  so,  and  maybe 
God  would  accept  that  absolution. 

There  was  a  very  dull  week,  now,  for  Satan  did  not 

59 


THE  MYSTERIOUS    STRANGER 

come,  nothing  much  was  going  on,  and  we  boys  could  not 
venture  to  go  and  see  Marget,  because  the  nights  were 
moonlit  and  our  parents  might  find  us  out  if  we  tried. 
But  we  came  across  Ursula  a  couple  of  times  taking  a 
walk  in  the  meadows  beyond  the  river  to  air  the  cat,  and 
we  learned  from  her  that  things  were  going  well.  She  had 
natty  new  clothes  on  and  bore  a  prosperous  look.  The 
four  groschen  a  day  were  arriving  without  a  break,  but 
were  not  being  spent  for  food  and  wine  and  such  things — 
the  cat  attended  to  all  that. 

Marget  was  enduring  her  forsakenness  and  isolation 
fairly  well,  all  things  considered,  and  was  cheerful,  by  help 
of  Wilhelm  Meidling.  She  spent  an  hour  or  two  every 
night  in  the  jail  with  her  uncle,  and  had  fattened  him  up 
with  the  cat's  contributions.  But  she  was  curious  to  know 
more  about  Philip  Traum,  and  hoped  I  would  bring  him 
again.  Ursula  was  curious  about  him  herself,  and  asked 
a  good  many  questions  about  his  uncle.  It  made  the  boys 
laugh,  for  I  bad  told  them  the  nonsense  Satan  had  been 
stuffing  her  with.  She  got  no  satisfaction  out  of  us,  our 
tongues  being  tied. 

Ursula  gave  us  a  small  item  of  information:  money 
being  plenty  now,  she  had  taken  on  a  servant  to  help  about 
the  house  and  run  errands.  She  tried  to  tell  it  in  a  common 
place,  matter-of-course  way,  but  she  was  so  set  up  by  it 

and  so  vain  of  it  that  her  pride  in  it  leaked  out  pretty 

60 


Painting  by  N.  C.  Wycth 

MARGET     WAS     CHEERFUL      BY     HELP     OF     WILHELM     MEIDLING 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

plainly.  It  was  beautiful  to  see  her  veiled  delight  in  this 
grandeur,  poor  old  thing,  but  when  we  heard  the  name  of 
the  servant  we  wondered  if  she  had  been  altogether  wise; 
for  although  we  were  young,  and  often  thoughtless,  we 
had  fairly  good  perception  on  some  matters.  This  boy  was 
Gottfried  Narr,  a  dull,  good  creature,  with  no  harm  in 
him  and  nothing  against  him  personally;  still,  he  was 
under  a  cloud,  and  properly  so,  for  it  had  not  been  six 
months  since  a  social  blight  had  mildewed  the  family— 
his  grandmother  had  been  burned  as  a  witch.  When  that 
kind  of  a  malady  is  in  the  blood  it  does  not  always  come 
out  with  just  one  burning.  Just  now  was  not  a  good  time 
for  Ursula  and  Marget  to  be  having  dealings  with  a  member 
of  such  a  family,  for  the  witch-terror  had  risen  higher  dur 
ing  the  past  year  than  it  had  ever  reached  in  the  memory 
of  the  oldest  villagers.  The  mere  mention  of  a  witch  was 
almost  enough  to  frighten  us  out  of  our  wits.  This  was 
natural  enough,  because  of  late  years  there  were  more 
kinds  of  witches  than  there  used  to  be;  in  old  times  it 
had  been  only  old  women,  but  of  late  years  they  were  of 
all  ages — even  children  of  eight  and  nine;  it  was  getting 
so  that  anybody  might  turn  out  to  be  a  familiar  of  the 
Devil — age  and  sex  hadn't  anything  to  do  with  it.  In 
our  little  region  we  had  tried  to  extirpate  the  witches,  but 
the  more  of  them  we  burned  the  more  of  the  breed  rose  up 

in  their  places. 

61 


/THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

jr  Once,  in  a  school  for  girls  only  ten  miles  away,  the 
teachers  found  that  the  back  of  one  of  the  girls  was  all  red 
and  inflamed,  and  they  were  greatly  frightened,  believing 
it  to  be  the  Devil's  marks.  The  girl  was  scared,  and  begged 
them  not  to  denounce  her,  and  said  it  was  only  fleas;  but 
of  course  it  would  not  do  to  let  the  matter  rest  there.  All 
the  girls  were  examined,  and  eleven  out  of  the  fifty  were 
badly  marked,  the  rest  less  so.  A  commission  was  ap 
pointed,  but  the  eleven  only  cried  for  their  mothers  and 
would  not  confess.  Then  they  were  shut  up,  each  by  her 
self,  in  the  dark,  and  put  on  black  bread  and  water  for  ten 
days  and  nights;  and  by  that  time  they  were  haggard  and 
wild,  and  their  eyes  were  dry  and  they  did  not  cry  any 
more,  but  only  sat  and  mumbled,  and  would  not  take  the 
food.  Then  one  of  them  confessed,  and  said  they  had  often 
ridden  through  the  air  on  broomsticks  to  the  witches' 
Sabbath,  and  in  a  bleak  place  high  up  in  the  mountains 
had  danced  and  drunk  and  caroused  with  several  hundred 
other  witches  and  the  Evil  One,  and  all  had  conducted  them- 

'  selves  in  a  scandalous  way  and  had  reviled  the  priests  and 
blasphemed  God.  That  is  what  she  said — not  in  narrative 
form,  for  she  was  not  able  to  remember  any  of  the  details 
without  having  them  called  to  her  mind  one  after  the  other; 
but  the  commission  did  that,  for  they  knew  just  what 
\  questions  to  ask,  they  being  all  written  down  for  the  use  of 

witch-commissioners  two  centuries  before.     They  asked, 

62 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"Did  you  do  so  and  so?"  and  she  always  said  yes,  and  looked 
weary  and  tired,  and  took  no  interest  in  it.  And  so  when 
the  other  ten  heard  that  this  one  confessed,  they  confessed, 
too,  and  answered  yes  to  the  questions.  Then  they  were 
burned  at  the  stake  all  together,  which  was  just  and  right; 
and  everybody  went  from  all  the  countryside  to  see  it.  I 
went,  too;  but  when  I  saw  that  one  of  them  was  a  bonny, 
sweet  girl  I  used  to  play  with,  and  looked  so  pitiful  there 
chained  to  the  stake,  and  her  mother  crying  over  her  and 
devouring  her  with  kisses  and  clinging  around  her  neck,  and 
saying,  "Oh,  my  God!  oh,  my  God!"  it  was  too  dreadful, 
and  I  went  away. 

It  was  bitter  cold  weather  when  Gottfried's  grandmother 
was  burned.  It  was  charged  that  she  had  cured  bad  head 
aches  by  kneading  the  person's  head  and  neck  with  her 
fingers — as  she  said — but  really  by  the  Devil's  help,  as 
everybody  knew.  They  were  going  to  examine  her,  but  she 
stopped  them,  and  confessed  straight  off  that  her  power  was 
from  the  Devil.  So  they  appointed  to  burn  her  next  morn 
ing,  early,  in  our  market-square.  The  officer  who  was  to 
prepare  the  fire  was  there  first,  and  prepared  it.  She  was 
there  next — brought  by  the  constables,  who  left  her  and 
went  to  fetch  another  witch.  Her  family  did  not  come  with 
her.  They  might  be  reviled,  maybe  stoned,  if  the  people 
were  excited.  I  came,  and  gave  her  an  apple.  She  was 

squatting  at  the  fire,  warming  herself  and  waiting;    and 

63 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

her  old  lips  and  hands  were  blue  with  the  cold.  A  stranger 
came  next.  He  was  a  traveler,  passing  through;  and  he 
spoke  to  her  gently,  and,  seeing  nobody  but  me  there  to  hear, 
said  he  was  sorry  for  her.  And  he  asked  if  what  she  con 
fessed  "was  true,  and  she  said  no.  He  looked  surprised  and 
still  more  sorry  then,  and  asked  her: 

"Then  why  did  you  confess?" 

^  "I  am  old  and  very  poor,"  she  said,  "and  I  work  for  my 
living.  There  was  no  way  but  to  confess.  If  I  hadn't  they 
jnight  have  set  me  free.  That  would  ruin  me,  for  no  one 
Jwould  forget  that  I  had  been  suspected  of  being  a  witch, 
/and  so  I  would  get  no  more  work,  and  wherever  I  went  they 
would  set  the  dogs  on  me.  In  a  little  while  I  would  starve. 
The  fire  is  best;  it  is  soon  over.  You  have  been  good  to  me, 
you  two,  and  I  thank  you." 

She  snuggled  closer  to  the  fire,  and  put  out  her  hands  to 
warm  them,  the  snow-flakes  descending  soft  and  still  on 
her  old  gray  head  and  making  it  white  and  whiter.  The 
crowd  was  gathering  now,  and  an  egg  came  flying  and  struck 
her  in  the  eye,  and  broke  and  ran  down  her  face.  There 
was  a  laugh  at  that. 

/I  told  Satan  all  about  the  eleven  girls  and  the  old  woman, 
/once,  but  it  did  not  affect  him.    He  only  said  it  was  the 
human  race,  and  w^aiJtheJbuman^race  did  was  of  no  con- 
V^sequence.    AnoHie  said  he  had  seen  it  made;   and__it  was 
noTmaSe  of  clay;    it  was  made  of  mud — part  of  it  was, 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

anyway.  I  knew  what  he  meant  by  that — the^Moral  Sense. 
He  saw  the  thought  in  my  head,  and  it  tickled  him  and 
made  him  laugh.  Then  he  called  a  bullock  out  of  a  pasture 
and  petted  it  and  talked  with  it,  and  said: 

"There — he  wouldn't  drive  children  mad  with  hunger  ancTl 
fright  and  loneliness,  and  then  burn  them  for  confessing  to 
things  invented  for  them  which  had  never  happened.  And 
neither  would  he  break  the  hearts  of  innocent,  poor  old 
women  and  make  them  afraid  to  trust  themselves  among 
their  own  race;  and  he  would  not  insult  them  in  their  death- 
agony.  For  he  is  not  besmirched  with  the  Moral  Sense, 
but  is  as  the  angels  are,  and  knows  no  wrong,  and  never 
does  it." 

Lovely  as  he  was,  Satan  could  be  cruelly  offensive  when 
he  chose;  and  he  always  chose  when  the  human  race  was 
brought  to  his  attention.  He  always  turned  up  his  nose  at 
it,  and  never  had  a  kind  word  for  it. 

Well,  as  I  was  saying,  we  boys  doubted  if  it  was  a  good 
time  for  Ursula  to  be  hiring  a  member  of  the  Narr  family. 
We  were  right.  When  the  people  found  it  out  they  were 
naturally  indignant.  And,  moreover,  since  Marget  and 
Ursula  hadn't  enough  to  eat  themselves,  where  was  the 
money  coming  from  to  feed  another  mouth?  That  is  what 
they  wanted  to  know;  and  in  order  to  find  out  they  stopped 
avoiding  Gottfried  and  began  to  seek  his  society  and  have 

sociable  conversations  with  him.     He  was  pleased — not 

65 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

thinking  any  harm  and  not  seeing  the  trap — and  so  he 
talked  innocently  along,  and  was  no  discreeter  than  a  cow. 

"Money!"  he  said;  "they've  got  plenty  of  it.  They 
pay  me  two  groschen  a  week,  besides  my  keep.  And  they 
live  on  the  fat  of  the  land,  I  can  tell  you;  the  prince  him 
self  can't  beat  their  table." 

This  astonishing  statement  was  conveyed  by  the  astrol 
oger  to  Father  Adolf  on  a  Sunday  morning  when  he  was 
returning  from  mass.  He  was  deeply  moved,  and  said: 

"This  must  be  looked  into." 

He  said  there  must  be  witchcraft  at  the  bottom  of  it, 
and  told  the  villagers  to  resume  relations  with  Marget  and 
Ursula  in  a  private  and  unostentatious  way,  and  keep  both 
eyes  open.  They  were  told  to  keep  their  own  counsel,  and 
not  rouse  the  suspicions  of  the  household.  The  villagers 
were  at  first  a  bit  reluctant  to  enter  such  a  dreadful  place, 
but  the  priest  said  they  would  be  under  his  protection  while 
there,  and  no  harm  could  come  to  them,  particularly  if  they 
carried  a  trifle  of  holy  water  along  and  kept  their  beads  and 
crosses  handy.  This  satisfied  them  and  made  them  willing 
to  go;  envy  and  malice  made  the  baser  sort  even  eager  to  go. 

And  so  poor  Marget  began  to  have  company  again,  and 

was  as  pleased  as  a  cat.    She  was  like  'most  anybody  else — 

just  human,  and  happy  in  her  prosperities  and  not  averse 

f  from  showing  them  off  a  little;    and  she  was  humanly 

grateful  to  have  the  warm  shoulder  turned  to  her  and  be 

66 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

smiled  upon  by  her  friends  and  the  village  again;  for  of  all 
the  hard  things  to  bear,  to  be  cut  by  your  neighbors  and 
left  in  contemptuous  solitude  is  maybe  the  hardest. 

The  bars  were  down,  and  we  could  all  go  there  now, 
and  we  did — our  parents  and  all — day  after  day.  The  cat 
began  to  strain  herself.  She  provided  the  top  of  every 
thing  for  those  companies,  and  in  abundance — among  them 
many  a  dish  and  many  a  wine  which  they  had  not  tasted 
before  and  which  they  had  not  even  heard  of  except  at 
second-hand  from  the  prince's  servants.  And  the  tableware 
was  much  above  ordinary,  too. 

Marget  was  troubled  at  times,  and  pursued  Ursula  with 
questions  to  an  uncomfortable  degree;  but  Ursula  stood 
her  ground  and  stuck  to  it  that  it  was  Providence,  and  said 
no  word  about  the  cat.  Marget  knew  that  nothing' was  im 
possible  to  Providence,  but  she  could  not  help  having 
doubts  that  this  effort  was  from  there,  though  she  was 
afraid  to  say  so,  lest  disaster  come  of  it.  Witchcraft  oc 
curred  to  her,  but  she  put  the  thought  aside,  for  this  was 
before  Gottfried  joined  the  household,  and  she  knew  Ursula 
was  pious  and  a  bitter  hater  of  witches.  By  the  time  Gott 
fried  arrived  Providence  was  established,  unshakably  in 
trenched,  and  getting  all  the  gratitude.  The  cat  made  no 
murmur,  but  went  on  composedly  improving  in  style  and 
prodigality  by  experience. 

In  any  community,  big  or  little,  there  is  always  a  fair 

67 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

proportion  of  people  who  are  not  malicious  or  unkind  by 
nature,  and  who  never  do  unkind  things  except  when  they 
are  overmastered  by  fear,  or  when  their  self-interest  is 
greatly  in  danger,  or  some  such  matter  as  that.  Eseldorf 
had  its  proportion  of  such  people,  and  ordinarily  their  good 
and  gentle  influence  was  felt,  but  these  were  not  ordinary 
times — -on  account  of  the  witch-dread — and  so  we  did  not 
seem  to  have  any  gentle  and  compassionate  hearts  left,  to 
speak  of.  Every  person  was  frightened  at  the  unaccount 
able  state  of  things  at  Marget's  house,  not  doubting  that 
witchcraft  was  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and  fright  frenzied  their 
reason.  Naturally  there  were  some  who  pitied  Marget  and 
Ursula  for  the  danger  that  was  gathering  about  them,  but 
naturally  they  did  not  say  so;  it  would  not  have  been  safe. 
So  the  others  had  it  all  their  own  way,  and  there  was  none 
to  advise  the  ignorant  girl  and  the  foolish  woman  and  warn 
them  to  modify  their  doings.  We  boys  wanted  to  warn 
them,  but  we  backed  down  when  it  came  to  the  pinch,  being 
afraid.  We  found  that  we  were  not  manly  enough  nor 
brave  enough  to  do  a  generous  action  when  there  was  a 
chance  that  it  could  get  us  into  trouble.  Neither  of  us 
confessed  this  poor  spirit  to  the  others,  but  did  as  other 
people  would  have  done — dropped  the  subject  and  talked 
about  something  else.  And  I  knew  we  all  felt  mean,  eating 
and  drinking  Marget's  fine  things  along  with  those  com 
panies  of  spies,  and  petting  her  and  complimenting  her 

68 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

with  the  rest,  and  seeing  with  self-reproach  how  foolishly 
happy  she  was,  and  never  saying  a  word  to  put  her  on  her 
guard.  And,  indeed,  she  was  happy,  and  as  proud  as  a 
princess,  and  so  grateful  to  have  friends  again.  And  all  the 
time  these  people  were  watching  with  all  their  eyes  and  re 
porting  all  they  saw  to  Father  Adolf. 

But  he  couldn't  make  head  or  tail  of  the  situation. 
There  must  be  an  enchanter  somewhere  on  the  premises, 
but  who  was  it?  Marget  was  not  seen  to  do  any  jugglery, 
nor  was  Ursula,  not  yet  Gottfried;  and  still  the  wines  and 
dainties  never  ran  short,  and  a  guest  could  not  call  for  a 
thing  and  not  get  it.  To  produce  these  effects  was  usual 
enough  with  witches  and  enchanters — that  part  of  it  was 
not  new;  but  to  do  it  without  any  incantations,  or  even 
any  rumblings  or  earthquakes  or  lightnings  or  apparitions 
— that  was  new,  novel,  wholly  irregular.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  books  like  this.  Enchanted  things  were  al 
ways  unreal.  Gold  turned  to  dirt  in  an  unenchanted 
atmosphere,  food  withered  away  and  vanished.  But  this 
test  failed  in  the  present  case.  The  spies  brought  samples: 
Father  Adolf  prayed  over  them,  exorcised  them,  but  it  did 
no  good;  they  remained  sound  and  real,  they  yielded  to 
natural  decay  only,  and  took  the  usual  time  to  do  it. 

Father  Adolf  was  not  merely  puzzled,  he  was  also  ex 
asperated;  for  these  evidences  very  nearly  convinced  him— 

privately — that  there  was  no  witchcraft  in  the  matter.    It 

69 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

did  not  wholly  convince  him,  for  this  could  be  a  new  kind 
of  witchcraft.  There  was  a  way  to  find  out  as  to  this:  if 
this  prodigal  abundance  of  provender  was  not  brought  in 
from  the  outside,  but  produced  on  the  premises,  there  was 
witchcraft,  sure. 


CHAPTER  VII 

MARGET  announced  a  party,  and  invited  forty  people; 
the  date  for  it  was  seven  days  away.  This  was  a  fine 
opportunity.  Marget's  house  stood  by  itself,  and  it  could 
be  easily  watched.  All  the  week  it  was  watched  night  and 
day.  Marget's  household  went  out  and  in  as  usual,  but 
they  carried  nothing  in  their  hands,  and  neither  they  nor 
others  brought  anything  to  the  house.  This  was  ascer 
tained.  Evidently  rations  for  forty  people  were  not  being 
fetched.  If  they  were  furnished  any  sustenance  it  would 
have  to  be  made  on  the  premises.  It  was  true  that  Marget 
went  out  with  a  basket  every  evening,  but  the  spies 
ascertained  that  she  always  brought  it  back  empty. 

The  guests  arrived  at  noon  and  filled  the  place.  Father 
Adolf  followed;  also,  after  a  little,  the  astrologer,  without 
invitation.  The  spies  had  informed  him  that  neither  at 
the  back  nor  the  front  had  any  parcels  been  brought  in. 
He  entered,  and  found  the  eating  and  drinking  going  on 
finely,  and  everything  progressing  in  a  lively  and  festive 
way.  He  glanced  around  and  perceived  that  many  of  the 

cooked  delicacies  and  all  of  the  native  and  foreign  fruits 

71 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

were  of  a  perishable  character,  and  he  also  recognized  that 
these  were  fresh  and  perfect.  No  apparitions,  no  incanta 
tions,  no  thunder.  That  settled  it.  This  was  witch 
craft.  And  not  only  that,  but  of  a  new  kind — a  kind 
never  dreamed  of  before.  It  was  a  prodigious  power,  an 
illustrious  power;  he  resolved  to  discover  its  secret.  The 
announcement  of  it  would  resound  throughout  the  world, 
penetrate  to  the  remotest  lands,  paralyze  all  the  nations 
with  amazement — and  carry  his  name  with  it,  and  make 
jT^  him  renowned  forever.  It  was  a  wonderful  piece  of  luck, 
a  splendid  piece  of  luck;  the  glory  of  it  made  him  dizzy. 

All  the  house  made  room  for  him;  Marget  politely 
seated  him;  Ursula  ordered  Gottfried  to  bring  a  special 
table  for  him.  Then  she  decked  it  and  furnished  it,  and 
asked  for  his  orders. 

"Bring  me  what  you  will,"  he  said. 

The  two  servants  brought  supplies  from  the  pantry, 
together  with  white  wine  and  red — a  bottle  of  each.  The 
astrologer,  who  very  likely  had  never  seen  such  delicacies 
before,  poured  out  a  beaker  of  red  wine,  drank  it  off,  poured 
another,  then  began  to  eat  with  a  grand  appetite. 

I  was  not  expecting  Satan,  for  it  was  more  than  a 
week  since  I  had  seen  or  heard  of  him,  but  now  he  came  in 
— I  knew  it  by  the  feel,  though  people  were  in  the  way  and  I 
could  not  see  him.  I  heard  him  apologizing  for  intruding; 

and  he  was  going  away,  but  Marget  urged  him  to  stay, 

72 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

and  he  thanked  her  and  stayed.  She  brought  him  along, 
introducing  him  to  the  girls,  and  to  Meidling,  and  to  some 
of  the  elders;  and  there  was  quite  a  rustle  of  whispers: 
"It's  the  young  stranger  we  hear  so  much  about  and  can't 
get  sight  of,  he  is  away  so  much."  "Dear,  dear,  but  he  is 
beautiful— what  is  his  name?"  "Philip  Traum."  "Ah,  it 
fits  him!"  (You  see,  "Traum"  is  German  for  "Dream.") 
"What  does  he  do?"  "Studying  for  the  ministry,  they 
say."  "His  face  is  his  fortune — he'll  be  a  cardinal  some 
day."  "Where  is  his  home?"  "Away  down  somewhere  in 
the  tropics,  they  say — has  a  rich  uncle  down  there."  And 
so  on.  He  made  his  way  at  once;  everybody  was  anxious 
to  know  him  and  talk  with  him.  Everybody  noticed  how 
cool  and  fresh  it  was,  all  of  a  sudden,  and  wondered  at  it, 
for  they  could  see  that  the  sun  was  beating  down  the  same 
as  before,  outside,  and  the  sky  was  clear  of  clouds,  but  no 
one  guessed  the  reason,  of  course. 

The  astrologer  had  drunk  his  second  beaker;  he  poured 
out  a  third.  He  set  the  bottle  down,  and  by  accident  over 
turned  it.  He  seized  it  before  much  was  spilled,  and  held 
it  up  to  the  light,  saying*  "W7hat  a  pity — it  is  royal  wine." 
Then  his  face  lighted  with  joy  or  triumph,  or  something, 
and  he  said,  "Quick!  Bring  a  bowl." 

It  was  brought — a  four-quart  one.  He  took  up  that 
two-pint  bottle  and  began  to  pour;  \vent  on  pouring,  the 

red  liquor  gurgling  and  gushing  into  the  white  bowl  and 
6  73 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

rising  higher  and  higher  up  its  sides,  everybody  staring 
and  holding  their  breath — and  presently  the  bowl  was  full 
to  the  brim. 

"Look  at  the  bottle,"  he  said,  holding  it  up;  "it  is  full 
yet!"  I  glanced  at  Satan,  and  in  that  moment  he  van 
ished.  Then  Father  Adolf  rose  up,  flushed  and  excited, 
crossed  himself,  and  began  to  thunder  in  his  great  voice, 
"This  house  is  bewitched  and  accursed!"  People  began 
to  cry  and  shriek  and  crowd  toward  the  door.  "I  summon 
this  detected  household  to — 

His  words  were  cut  off  short.  His  face  became  red,  then 
purple,  but  he  could  not  utter  another  sound.  Then  I  saw 
Satan,  a  transparent  film,  melt  into  the  astrologer's  body; 
then  the  astrologer  put  up  his  hand,  and  apparently  in  his 
own  voice  said,  "Wait — remain  where  you  are."  All 
stopped  where  they  stood.  "Bring  a  funnel!"  Ursula 
brought  it,  trembling  and  scared,  and  he  stuck  it  in  the 
bottle  and  took  up  the  great  bowl  and  began  to  pour  the 
wine  back,  the  people  gazing  and  dazed  with  astonishment, 
for  they  knew  the  bottle  was  already  full  before  he  began. 
He  emptied  the  whole  of  the  bowl  into  the  bottle,  then 
smiled  out  over  the  room,  chuckled,  and  said,  indifferently: 

Clt  is  nothing — anybody  can  do  it!     With  my  powers  I 
an  even  do  much  more." 

A  frightened  cry  burst  out  everywhere,  "Oh,  my  God,  he 

is  possessed!"  and  there  was  a  tumultuous  rush  for  the 

74 


-V-  C.  Wyelk. 
THE    ASTROLOGER    EMPTIED    THE    WHOLE    OF    THE    BOWL    INTO    THE    BOTTLE 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

door  which  swiftly  emptied  the  house  of  all  who  did  not 
belong  in  it  except  us  boys  and  Meidling.  We  boys  knew 
the  secret,  and  would  have  told  it  if  we  could,  but  we 
couldn't.  We  were  very  thankful  to  Satan  for  furnishing 
that  good  help  at  the  needful  time. 

Marget  was  pale,  and  crying;  Meidling  looked  kind  of 
petrified;  Ursula  the  same;  but  Gottfried  was  the  worst — 
he  couldn't  stand,  he  was  so  weak  and  scared.  For  he  was 
of  a  witch  family,  you  know,  and  it  would  be  bad  for  him 
to  be  suspected.  Agnes  came  loafing  in,  looking  pious  frnd 
unaware,  and  wanted  to  rub  up  against  Ursula  and  be 
petted,  but  Ursula  was  afraid  of  her  and  shrank  away 
from  her,  but  pretending  she  was  not  meaning  any  incivility, 
for  she  knew  very  well  it  wouldn't  answer  to  have  strained 
relations  with  that  kind  of  a  cat.  But  we  boys  took  Agnes 
and  petted  her,  for  Satan  would  not  have  befriended  her 
if  he  had  not  had  a  good  opinion  of  her,  and  that  was  in 
dorsement  enough  for  us.  He  seemed  to  trust  anything 
that  hadn't  the  Moral  Sense. 

Outside,  the  guests,  panic-stricken,  scattered  in  every 
direction  arnd  fled  in  a  pitiable  state  of  terror;  and  such  a 
tumult  as  they  made  with  their  running  and  sobbing  and 
shrieking  and  shouting  that  soon  all  the  village  came 
flocking  from  their  houses  to  see  what  had  happened,  and 
they  thronged  the  street  and  shouldered  and  jostled  one 

another  in  excitement  and  fright;    and  then  Father  Adolf 

75 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

appeared,  and  they  fell  apart  in  two  walls  like  the  cloven 

Red  Sea,  and  presently  down  this  lane  the  astrologer  came 

striding  and  mumbling,   and  where  he  passed  the  lanes 

surged  back  in  packed  masses,  and  fell  silent  with  awe,  and 

their  eyes  stared  and  their  breasts  heaved,   and  several 

women  fainted;    and  .when  he  was  gone  by  the   crowd 

swarmed  together  and  followed  him  at  a  distance,  talking 

excitedly  and  asking  questions  and  finding  out  the  facts. 

Finding  out  the  facts  and  passing  them  on  to  others,  with 

Improvements — improvements    which    soon    enlarged    the 

I  bowl  of  wine  to  a  barrel,  and  made  the  one  bottle  hold  it  all 

1  and  yet  remain  empty  to  the  last. 

When  the  astrologer  reached  the  market-square  he  went 
straight  to  a  juggler,  fantastically  dressed,  who  was  keeping 
three  brass  balls  in  the  air,  and  took  them  from  him  and 
faced  around  upon  the  approaching  crowd  and  said: 
"This  poor  clown  is  ignorant  of  his  art.  Come  forward  and 
see  an  expert  perform." 

So  saying,  he  tossed  the  balls  up  one  after  another  and 
set  them  whirling  in  a  slender  bright  oval  in  the  air,  and 
added  another,  then  another  and  another,  and  soon — no 
one  seeing  whence  he  got  them — adding,  adding,  adding, 
the  oval  lengthening  all  the  time,  his  hands  moving  so 
swiftly  that  they  were  just  a  web  or  a  blur  and  not  dis 
tinguishable  as  hands;  and  such  as  counted  said  there 

were  now  a  hundred  balls  in  the  air.    The  spinning  great 

76 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

oval  reached  up  twenty  feet  in  the  air  and  was  a  shining 
and  glinting  and  wonderful  sight.  Then  he  folded  his 
arms  and  told  the  balls  to  go  on  spinning  without  his  help— 
and  they  did  it.  After  a  couple  of  minutes  he  said,  "There, 
that  will  do,"  and  the  oval  broke  and  came  crashing  down, 
and  the  balls  scattered  abroad  and  rolled  every  whither. 
And  wherever  one  of  them  came  the  people  fell  back  in 
dread,  and  no,  one  would  touch  it.  It  made  him  laugh, 
and  he  scoffed  at  the  people  and  called  them  cowards  and 
old  women.  Then  he  turned  and  saw  the  tight-rope,  and 
said  foolish  people  were  daily  wasting  their  money  to  see  a 
clumsy  and  ignorant  varlet  degrade  that  beautiful  art; 
now  they  should  see  the  work  of  a  master.  With  that  he 
made  a  spring  into  the  air  and  lit  firm  on  his  feet  on  the 
rope.  Then  he  hopped  the  whole  length  of  it  back  and  forth 
on  one  foot,  with  his  hands  clasped  over  his  eyes ;  and  next 
he  began  to  throw  somersaults,  both  backward  and  forward, 
and  threw  twenty-seven. 

The  people  murmured,  for  the  astrologer  wras  old,  and 
always  before  had  been  halting  of  movement  and  at  times 
even  lame,  but  he  was  nimble  enough  now  and  went  on 
with  his  antics  in  the  liveliest  manner.  Finally  he  sprang 
lightly  down  and  walked  away,  and  passed  up  the  road  and 
around  the  corner  and  disappeared.  Then  that  great,  pale, 
silent,  solid  crowd  drew  a  deep  breath  and  looked  into  one 

another's  faces  as  if  they  said:    "Was  it  real?     Did  you 

77 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

see  it,  or  was  it  only  I — and  I  was  dreaming?"  Then  they 
broke  into  a  low  murmur  of  talking,  and  fell  apart  in  couples, 
and  moved  toward  their  homes,  still  talking  in  that  awed 
way,  with  faces  close  together  and  laying  a  hand  on  an 
arm  and  making  other  such  gestures  as  people  make  when 
they  have  been  deeply  impressed  by  something. 

We  boys  followed  behind  our  fathers,  and  listened, 
catching  all  we  could  of  what  they  said;  and  when  they  sat 
down  in  our  house  and  continued  their  talk  they  still  had 
us  for  company.  They  were  in  a  sad  mood,  for  it  was  cer 
tain,  they  said,  that  disaster  for  the  village  must  follow  this 
awful  visitation  of  witches  and  devils.  Then  my  father 
remembered  that  Father  Adolf  had  been  struck  dumb  at 
the  moment  of  his  denunciation. 

"They  have  not  ventured  to  lay  their  hands  upon  an 
anointed  servant  of  God  before,"  he  said;  "and  how  they 
could  have  dared  it  this  time  I  cannot  make  out,  for  he 
wore  his  crucifix.  Isn't  it  so?" 

:<Yes,"  said  the  others,  "we  saw  it." 

"It  is  serious,  friends,  it  is  very  serious.  Always  be 
fore,  we  had  a  protection.  It  has  failed." 

The  others  shook,  as  with  a  sort  of  chill,  and  muttered 
those  words  over — "  It  has  failed."  "  God  has  forsaken  us." 

"It  is  true,"  said  Seppi  Wohlmeyer's  father;  "there  is 
nowhere  to  look  for  help." 

"The  people  will  realize  this,"  said  Nikolaus's  father, 

78 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

the  judge,  "and  despair  will  take  away  their  courage  and 
their  energies.  We  have  indeed  fallen  upon  evil  times." 

He  sighed,  and  Wolhmeyer  said,  in  a  troubled  voice: 
"The  report  of  it  all  will  go  about  the  country,  and  our 
village  will  be  shunned  as  being  under  the  displeasure  of 
God.  The  Golden  Stag  will  know  hard  times." 

"True,  neighbor,"  said  my  father;  "all  of  us  will  suf 
fer — all  in  repute,  many  in  estate.  And,  good  God!— 

"What  is  it?" 

"That  can  come — to  finish  us!" 

"Name  it— urn  Gottes  Willen!" 

"The  Interdict!" 

It  smote  like  a  thunderclap,  and  they  were  like  to  swoon 
with  the  terror  of  it.  Then  the  dread  of  this  calamity 
roused  their  energies,  and  they  stopped  brooding  and  be 
gan  to  consider  ways  to  avert  it.  They  discussed  this,  that, 
and  the  other  way,  and  talked  till  the  afternoon  was  far 
spent,  then  confessed  that  at  present  they  could  arrive  at 
no  decision.  So  they  parted  sorrowfully,  with  oppressed 
hearts  which  were  filled  with  bodings. 

WThile  they  were  saying  their  parting  words  I  slipped  out 
and  set  my  course  for  Marget's  house  to  see  what  was 
happening  there.  I  met  many  people,  but  none  of  them 
greeted  me.  It  ought  to  have  been  surprising,  but  it  was 
not,  for  they  were  so  distraught  with  fear  and  dread  that 

they  were  not  in  their  right  minds,  I  think;    they  were 

79 


1 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

white  and  haggard,  and  walked  like  persons  in  a  dream, 
their  eyes  open  but  seeing  nothing,  their  lips  moving  but 
uttering  nothing,  and  worriedly  clasping  and  unclasping 
their  hands  without  knowing  it. 

At  Marget's  it  was  like  a  funeral.  She  and  Wilhelm 
sat  together  on  the  sofa,  but  said  nothing,  and  not  even 
holding  hands.  Both  were  steeped  in  gloom,  and  Marget's 
eyes  were  red  from  the  crying  she  had  been  doing.  She  said  : 

"I  have  been  begging  him  to  go,  and  come  no  more,  and 
so  save  himself  alive.  I  cannot  bear  to  be  his  murderer. 
This  house  is  bewitched,  and  no  inmate  will  escape  the 
fire.  But  he  will  not  go,  and  he  will  be  lost  with  the  rest." 

Wilhelm  said  he  would  not  go;  if  there  was  danger  for 
her,  his  place  was  by  her,  and  there  he  would  remain. 
Then  she  began  to  cry  again,  and  it  was  all  so  mournful 
that  I  wished  I  had  stayed  away.  There  was  a  knock, 
now,  and  Satan  came  in,  fresh  and  cheery  and_beautiful, 
and  brought  that  winy  atmosphere  of  his  and  changed  the 


thing.  He  never  said  a  word  about  what  had  been 
happening,  nor  about  the  awful  fears  which  were  freezing 
the  blood  in  the  hearts  of  the  community,  but  began  to 
talk  and  rattle  on  about  all  manner  of  gay  and  pleasant 
things;  and  next  about  music  —  an  artful  stroke  which 
cleared  away  the  remnant  of  Marget's  depression  and 
brought  her  spirits  and  her  interests  broad  awake.  She 

had  not  heard  any  one  talk  so  well  and  so  knowingly  on 

80 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

that  subject  before,  and  she  was  so  uplifted  by  it  and  so 
charmed  that  what  she  was  feeling  lit  up  her  face  and 
came  out  in  her  words;  and  Wilhelm  noticed  it  and  did 
not  look  as  pleased  as  he  ought  to  have  done.  And  next 
Satan  branched  off  into  poetry,  and  recited  some,  and  did 
it  well,  and  Marget  was  charmed  again;  and  again  Wilhelm 
was  not  as  pleased  as  he  ought  to  have  been,  and  this  time 
Marget  noticed  it  and  was  remorseful. 

I  fell  asleep  to  pleasant  music  that  night — the  patter  of 
rain  upon  the  panes  and  the  dull  growling  of  distant  thun 
der.  Away  in  the  night  Satan  came  and  roused  me  and 
said:  "Come  with  me.  Where  shall  we  go?" 

"Anywhere — so  it  is  with  you." 

Then  there  was  a  fierce  glare  of  sunlight,  and  he  said, 
"This  is  China." 

That  was  a  grand  surprise,  and  made  me  sort  of  drunk 
with  vanity  and  gladness  to  think  I  had  come  so  far — so 
much,  much  farther  than  anybody  else  in  our  village,  in 
cluding  Bartel  Sperling,  who  had  such  a  great  opinion  of 
his  travels.  We  buzzed  around  over  that  empire  for  more 
than  half  an  hour,  and  saw  the  whole  of  it.  It  was  wonder 
ful,  the  spectacles  we  saw;  and  some  were  beautiful,  others 
too  horrible  to  think.  For  instance—  However,  I  may  go 
into  that  by  and  by,  and  also  why  Satan  chose  China  for 
this  excursion  instead  of  another  place;  it  would  interrupt 

my  tale  to  do  it  now.    Finally  we  stopped  flitting  and  lit. 

81 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

We  sat  upon  a  mountain  commanding  a  vast  landscape 
of  mountain-range  and  gorge  and  valley  and  plain  and  river, 
with  cities  and  villages  slumbering  in  the  sunlight,  and  a 
glimpse  of  blue  sea  on  the  farther  verge.  It  was  a  tranquil 
and  dreamy  picture,  beautiful  to  the  eye  and  restful  to  the 
spirit.  If  we  could  only  make  a  change  like  that  whenever 
we  wanted  to,  the  world  would  be  easier  to  live  in  than  it 
is,  for  change  of  scene  shifts  the  mind's  burdens  to  the 
other  shoulder  and  banishes  old,  shop-worn  wearinesses 
from  mind  and  body  both. 

We  talked  together,  and  I  had  the  idea  of  trying  to  re 
form  Satan  and  persuade  him  to  lead  a  better  life.  I  told 
him  about  all  those  things  he  had  been  doing,  and  begged 
him  to  be  more  considerate  and  stop  making  people  un 
happy.  I  said  I  knew  he  did  not  mean  any  harm,  but  that 
he  ought  to  stop  and  consider  the  possible  consequences  of 
a  thing  before  launching  it  in  that  impulsive  and  random 
wray  of  his;  then  he  would  not  make  so  much  trouble.  He 
was  not  hurt  by  this  plain  speech;  he  only  looked  ajjuised 
and^jswFpidssd^and  said: 

"What?  I  do  random  things?  Indeed,  I  never  do.  I 
stop  and  consider  possible  consequences?  Where  is  the 
need?  I  know  what  the  consequences  are  going  to  be — 
always." 

"Oh,  Satan,  then  how  could  you  do  these  things?" 

"Well,  I  will  tell  you,  and  you  must  understand  if  you 

82 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

can.  You  belong  to  a  singular  race.  Every  man  is  a 
suffering-machine  and  a  happiness-machine  combined.  The 
two  functions  work  together  harmoniously,  with  a  fine  and 
delicate  precision,  on  the  give-and-take  principle.  For 
every  happiness  turned  out  in  the  one  department  the  other 
stands  ready  to  modify  it  with  a  sorrow  or  a  pain — maybe  v 

a  dozen.     In  most  cases  the  man's  life  is  about  equally  ^ 

divided  between  happiness  and  unhappiness.  When  this  is 
not  the  case  the  unhappiness  predominates — always;  never 
the  other.  ^Sometimes  a  man's  make  and  disposition  are 
such  that  his  misery -machine  is  able  to  do  nearly  all  the 
business.  Such  a  man  goes  through  life  almost  ignorant  of 
what  happiness  is.  Everything  he  touches,  everything  he  Cj 
does,  brings  a  misfortune  upon  him.  You  have  seen  such 
people?  To  that  kind  of  a  person  life  is  not  an  advantage, 
is  it?  It  is  only  a  disaster.  Sometimes  for  an  hour's  happi 
ness  a  man's  machinery  makes  him  pay  years  of  misery. 
Don't  you  know  that?  It  happens  every  now  and  then. 
I  will  give  you  a  case  or  two  presently.  Now  the  people  of 
your  village  are  nothing  to  me — you  know  that,  don't 
you?" 

I  did  not  like  to  speak  out  too  flatly,  so  I  said  I  had 
suspected  it. 

"Well,  it  is  true  that  they  are  nothing  to  me.    It  is  not 
possible  that  they  should  be.    The  difference  between  them 

and  me  is  abysmal,  immeasurable.    They  have  no  intellect.'!. 

83  


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

j>  "No  intellect?" 

"Nothing  that  resembles  it.  At  a  future  time  I  will 
examine  what  man  calls  his  mind  and  give  you  the  details 
of  that  chaos,  then  you  will  see  and  understand.  Men  have 
/  'nothing  in  common  with  me — there  is  no  point  of  contact; 
they  have  foolish  little  feelings  and  foolish  little  vanities 
•  and  impertinences  and  ambitions;  their  foolish  little  life 
is  but  a  laugh,  a  sigh,  and  extinction;  and  they  have  no 
sense.  Only  the  Moral  Sense.  I  will  show  you  what  I 
mean.  Here  is  a  red  spider,  not  so  big  as  a  pin's  head.  Can 
you  imagine  an  elephant  being  interested  in  him — caring 
whether  he  is  happy  or  isn't,  or  whether  he  is  wealthy  or 
poor,  or  whether  his  sweetheart  returns  his  love  or  not,  or 
i  whether  his  mother  is  sick  or  well,  or  whether  he  is  looked 
\  x\j  up  to  in  society  or  not,  or  whether  his  enemies  will  smite 
him  or  his  friends  desert  him,  or  whether  his  hopes  will 
suffer  blight  or  his  political  ambitions  fail,  or  whether  he 
shall  die  in  the  bosom  of  his  family  or  neglected  and  de 
spised  in  a  foreign  land?  These  things  can  never  be  im 
portant  to  the  elephant;  they  are  nothing  to  him;  he  can 
not  shrink  his  sympathies  to  the  microscopic  size  of  them. 
Man  is  to  me  as  the  red  spider  is  to  the  elephant.  The 
elephant  has  nothing  against  the  spider — he  cannot  get 
down  to  that  remote  level;  I  have  nothing  against  man. 
The  elephant  is  indifferent;  I  am  indifferent.  The  elephant 

would  not  take  the  trouble  to  do  the  spider  an  ill  turn; 

84 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

if  he  took  the  notion  he  might  do  him  a  good  turn,  if  it 
came  in  his  way  and  cost  nothing.  I  have  done  men  good 
service,  but  no  ill  turns. 

"The  elephant  lives  a  century,  the  red  spider  a  day;   in 

power,  intellect,  and  dignity  the  one  creature  is  separated 

\  from  the  other  by  a  distance  which  is  simply  astronomical. 

!  Yet  in  these,  as  in  all  qualities,  man  is  immeasurably  further 

:bejow  me  than  is  the  wee  spider  below  the  elephant. 

/    "Man's  mind  clumsily  and  tediously  and  laboriously 

(patches  little  trivialities  together  and  gets  a  result — such 

as^it  is.    My  mind  creates!    Do  you  get  the  force  of  that? 

Creates  anything  it  desires — and  in  a  moment.     Creates 

without  material.     Creates  fluids,  solids,  colors — anything, 

everything — out  of  the  airy  nothing  which  is  called  Thought. 

A  man  imagines  a  silk  thread,  imagines  a  machine  to  make 

it,  imagines  a  picture,  then  by  weeks  of  labor  embroiders 

it'  on  canvas  with  the  thread.      I  think  the  whole  thing, 

and  in  a  moment  it  is  before  you — created. 

"I  think  a  poem,  music,  the  record  of  a  game  of  chess — 
anything — and  it  is  there.  This  is  the  immortal  mind- 
nothing  is  beyond  its  reach.  Nothing  can  obstruct  my  vi 
sion;  the  rocks  are  transparent  to  me,  and  darkness  is  day 
light.  I  do  not  need  to  open  a  book;  I  take  the  whole  of  its 
contents  into  my  mind  at  a  single  glance,  through  the 
cover;  and  in  a  million  years  I  could  not  forget  a  single 

word  of  it,  or  its  place  in  the  volume.    Nothing  goes  on  in 

85 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

the  skull  of  man,  bird,  fish,  insect,  or  other  creature  which 
can  be  hidden  from  me.  I  pierce  the  learned  man's  brain 
with  a  single  glance,  and  the  treasures  which  cost  him 
threescore  years  to  accumulate  are  mine ;  he  can  forget,  and 
he  does  forget,  but  I  retain. 

"Now,  then,  I  perceive  by  your  thoughts  that  you  are 
understanding  me  fairly  well.  Let  us  proceed.  Circum 
stances  might  so  fall  out  that  the  elephant  could  like  the 
spider — supposing  he  can  see  it — but  he  could  not  love  it. 
His  love  is  for  his  own  kind — for  his  equals.  An  angel's 
love  is  sublime,  adorable,  divine,  beyond  the  imagination 
of  man — infinitely  beyond  it!  But  it  is  limited  to  his  own 
august  order.  If  it  fell  upon  one  of  your  race  for  only  an 
instant,  it  would  consume  its  object  to  ashes.  No,  we  can 
not  love  men,  but  we  can  be  harmlessly  indifferent  to  them ; 
we  can  also  like  them,  sometimes.  I  like  you  and  the  boys, 
I  like  Father  Peter,  and  for  your  sakes  I  am  doing  all  these 
things  for  the  villagers." 

He  saw  that  I  was  thinking  a  sarcasm,  and  he  explained 
his  position. 

"I  have  wrought  well  for  the  villagers,  though  it  does 
not  look  like  it  oil  the  surface.  >  Your  race  never  know  good 
fortune  from  ill.  They  are  aWa^s  mistaking  the  one  for 
the  other?)  It  is  because  they  cannot  see  into  the  future. 
What  I  am  doing  for  the  villagers  will  bear  good  fruit  some 

day;    in  some  cases  to  themselves;    in  others,  to  unborn 

86 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

generations  of  men.  No  one  will  ever  know  that  I  was  the 
cause,  but  it  will  be  none  the  less  true,  for  all  that.  Among 
you  boys  you  have  a  game:  you  stand  a  row  of  bricks  on 
end  a  few  inches  apart;  you  push  a  brick,  it  knocks  its 
neighbor  over,  the  neighbor  knocks  over  the  next  brick— 
and  so  on  till  all  the  row  is  prostrate.  That  is  human  life. 
A  child's  first  act  knocks  over  the  initial  brick,  and  the  rest 
will  follow  inexorably.  If  you  could  see  into  the  future,  as 
I  can,  you  would  see  everything  that  was  going  to  happen 
to  that  creature;  for  nothing  can  change  the  order  of  its 
life  after  the  first  event  has  determined  it.  That  is,  nothing 
will  change  it,  because  each  act  unfailingly  begets  an  act, 
that  act  begets  another,  and  so  on  to  the  end,  and  the  seer 
can  look  forward  down  the  line  and  see  just  when  each  act  ( 
is  to  have  birth,  from  cradle  to  grave." 

"Does  God  order  the  career?" 

"Foreordain  it?  No.  The  man's  circumstances  and 
environment  order  it.  His  first  act  determines  the  second 
and  all  that  follow  after.  But  suppose,  for  argument's  sake, 
that  the  man  should  skip  one  of  these  acts;  an  apparently 
trifling  one,  for  instance;  suppose  that  it  had  been  ap 
pointed  that  on  a  certain  day,  at  a  certain  hour  and  minute 
and  second  and  fraction  of  a  second  he  should  go  to  the 
well,  and  he  didn't  go.  That  man's  career  would  change 
utterly,  from  that  moment;  thence  to  the  grave  it  would 

be  wholly  different  from  the  career  which  his  first  act  as  a 

87 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

child  had  arranged  for  him.  Indeed,  it  might  be  that  if 
he  had  gone  to  the  well  he  would  have  ended  his  career  on 
a  throne,  and  that  omitting  to  do  it  would  set  him  upon  a 
career  that  would  lead  to  beggary  and  a  pauper's  grave. 
For  instance:  if  at  any  time — say  in  boyhood — Columbus 
had  skipped  the  triflingest  little  link  in  the  chain  of  acts 
projected  and  made  inevitable  by  his  first  childish  act,  it 
would  have  changed  his  whole  subsequent  life,  and  he 
would  have  become  a  priest  and  died  obscure  in  an  Italian 
village,  and  America  would  not  have  been  discovered  for 
two  centuries  afterward.  I  know  this.  To  skip  any  one 
of  the  billion  acts  in  Columbus's  chain  would  have  wholly 
changed  his  life.  I  have  examined  his  billion  of  possible 
careers,  and  in  only  one  of  them  occurs  the  discovery  of 
America.  You  people  do  not  suspect  that  all  of  your  acts 
are  of  one  size  and  importance,  but  it  is  true;  to  snatch  at 
an  appointed  fly  is  as  big  with  fate  for  you  as  in  any  other 
appointed  act — " 

"As  the  conquering  of  a  continent,  for  instance?" 
"Yes.  Now,  then,  no  man  ever  does  drop  a  link— the 
thing  has  never  happened!  Even  when  he  is  trying  to 
make  up  his  mind  as  to  whether  he  will  do  a  thing  or  not, 
that  itself  is  a  link,  an  act,  and  has  its  proper  place  in  his 
chain;  and  when  he  finally  decides  an  act,  that  also  was 
the  thing  which  he  was  absolutely  certain  to  do.  You  see, 

now,  that  a  man  will  never  drop  a  link  in  his  chain.     He 

88 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

cannot.  If  he  made  up  his  mind  to  try,  that  project  would 
itself  be  an  unavoidable  link — a  thought  bound  to  occur  to 
him  at  that  precise  moment,  and  made  certain  by  the  first 
act  of  his  babyhood." 

It  seemed  so  dismal! 

"He  is  a  prisoner  for  life,"  I  said  sorrowfully,  "and 
cannot  get  free." 

"No,  of  himself  he  cannot  get  away  from  the  conse 
quences  of  his  first  childish  act.  But  I  can  free  him." 

I  looked  up  wistfully. 

"I  have  changed  the  careers  of  a  number  of  your 
villagers." 

I  tried  to  thank  him,  but  found  it  difficult,  and  let  it 
drop. 

"I  shall  make  some  other  changes.  You  know  that 
little  Lisa  Brandt?" 

"Oh  yes,  everybody  does.  My  mother  says  she  is  so 
sweet  and  so  lovely  that  she  is  not  like  any  other  child. 
She  says  she  will  be  the  pride  of  the  village  when  she  grows 
up;  and  its  idol,  too,  just  as  she  is  nowT." 

"I  shall  change  her  future." 

"Make  it  better?"  I  asked. 

:<Yes.     And  I  will  change  the  future  of  Nikolaus." 

I  was  glad,  this  time,  and  said,  "I  don't  need  to  ask 
about  his  case;  you  will  be  sure  to  do  generously  by  him." 

"It  is  my  intention." 

7  89 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

Straight  off  I  was  building  that  great  future  of  N'cky's 
in  my  imagination,  and  had  already  made  a  renowned  gen 
eral  of  him  and  hofmeister  at  the  court,  when  I  noticed  that 
Satan  was  waiting  for  me  to  get  ready  to  listen  again.  I 
was  ashamed  of  having  exposed  my  cheap  imaginings  to 
him,  and  was  expecting  some  sarcasms,  but  it  did  not 
happen.  He  proceeded  with  his  subject: 

"Nicky's  appointed  life  is  sixty -two  years." 

"That's  grand!"  I  said. 

"Lisa's,  thirty-six.  But,  as  I  told  you,  I  shall  change 
their  lives  and  those  ages.  Two  minutes  and  a  quarter  from 
now  Nikolaus  will  wake  out  of  his  sleep  and  find  the  rain 
blowing  in.  It  was  appointed  that  he  should  turn  over  and 
go  to  sleep  again.  But  I  have  appointed  that  he  shall  get 
up  and  close  the  window  first.  That  trifle  will  change  his 
career  entirely.  He  will  rise  in  the  morning  two  minutes 
later  than  the  chain  of  his  life  had  appointed  him  to  rise. 
By  consequence,  thenceforth  nothing  will  ever  happen  to 
him  in  accordance  with  the  details  of  the  old  chain."  He 
took  out  his  watch  and  sat  looking  at  it  a  few  moments, 
then  said:  "Nikolaus  has  risen  to  close  the  window.  His 
life  is  changed,  his  new  career  has  begun.  There  will  be 
consequences." 

It  made  me  feel  creepy;  it  was  uncanny. 

"But   for   this    change   certain   things   would   happen 

twelve  days  from  now.    For  instance,  Nikolaus  would  save 

90 


THE  MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

Lisa  from  drowning.  He  would  arrive  on  the  scene  at 
exactly  the  right  moment — four  minutes  past  ten,  the  long- 
ago  appointed  instant  of  time — and  the  water  would  be 
shoal,  the  achievement  easy  and  certain.  But  he  will  arrive 
some  seconds  too  late,  now;  Lisa  will  have  struggled  into 
deeper  water.  He  will  do  his  best,  but  both  will  drown." 

"Oh,  Satan!  oh,  dear  Satan!"  I  cried,  with  the  tears 
^ising  in  my  eyes,  "save  them!  Don't  let  it  happen.  I 
can't  bear  to  lose  Nikolaus,  he  is  my  loving  playmate  and 
friend;  and  think  of  Lisa's  poor  mother!" 

I  clung  to  him  and  begged  and  pleaded,  but  he  was  not 
moved.  He  made  me  sit  down  again,  and  told  me  I  must 
hear  him  out. 

"I  have  changed  Nikolaus's  life,  and  this  has  changed 
Lisa's.  If  I  had  not  done  this,  Nikolaus  would  save  Lisa, 
then  he  would  catch  cold  from  his  drenching;  one  of  your 
race's  fantastic  and  desolating  scarlet  fevers  would  follow, 
with  pathetic  after-effects;  for  forty-six  years  he  would  lie 
in  his  bed  a  paralytic  log,  deaf,  dumb,  blind,  and  praying 
night  and  day  for  the  blessed  relief  of  death.  Shall  I 
change  his  life  back?" 

"Oh  no!  Oh,  not  for  the  world!  In  charity  and  pity 
leave  it  as  it  is." 

"It  is  best  so.  I  could  not  have  changed  any  other 
link  in  his  life  and  done  him  so  good  a  service.  He  had  a 

billion  possible  careers,  but  not  one  of  them  was  worth 

91 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

living;  they  were  charged  full  with  miseries  and  disasters. 
But  for  my  intervention  he  would  do  his  brave  deed  twelve 
days  from  now — a  deed  begun  and  ended  in  six  minutes — 
and  get  for  all  reward  those  forty -six  years  of  sorrow  and 
suffering  I  told  you  of.  It  is  one  of  the  cases  I  was  thinking 
of  awhile  ago  when  I  said  that  sometimes  an  act  which  j 
brings  the  actor  an  hour's  happiness  and  self-satisfaction 
is  paid  for — or  punished — by  years  of  suffering." 

I  Wondered  what  poor  little  Lisa's  early  death  woukh 
save  her  from.    He  answered  the  thought: 

"From  ten  years  of  pain  and  slow  recovery  from  an 
accident,  and  then  from  nineteen  years'  pollution,  shame, 
depravity,  crime,  ending  with  death  at  the  hands  of  the 
executioner.  Twelve  days  hence  she  wrill  die;  her  mother 
would  save  her  life  if  she  could.  Am  I  not  kinder  than  her 
mother?" 

:<Yes — oh,  indeed  yes;  and  wiser." 

"Father  Peter's  case  is  coming  on  presently.  He  will 
be  acquitted,  through  unassailable  proofs  of  his  innocence." 

"Why,  Satan,  how  can  that  be?  Do  you  really  think 
it?" 

"  Indeed,  I  know  it.  His  good  name  will  be  restored,  and 
the  rest  of  his  life  will  be  happy." 

"I  can  believe  it.  To  restore  his  good  name  will  have 
that  effect." 

"His  happiness  will  not  proceed  from  that  cause.     I 

92 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

shall  change  his  life  that  day,  for  his  good.  He  will  never 
know  his  good  name  has  been  restored." 

In  my  mind — and  modestly — I  asked  for  particulars, 
but  Satan  paid  no  attention  to  my  thought.  Next,  my 
mind  wandered  to  the  astrologer,  and  I  wondered  where  he 
might  be. 

"In  the  moon,"  said  Satan,  with  a  fleeting  sound 
which  I  believed  was  a  chuckle.  "I've  got  him  on  the  cold 
side  of  it,  too.  He  doesn't  know  where  he  is,  and  is  not 
having  a  pleasant  time;  still,  it  is  good  enough  for  him,  a 
good  place  for  his  star  studies.  I  shall  need  him  presently; 
then  I  shall  bring  him  back  and  possess  him  again.  He  has 
a  long  and  cruel  and  odious  life  before  him,  but  I  will 
change  that,  for  I  have  no  feeling  against  him  and  am  quite 
willing  to  do  him  a  kindness.  I  think  I  shall  get  him 
burned." 

He  had  such  strange  notions  of  kindness!  But  angels 
are  made  so,  and  do  not  know  any  better.  Their  ways  are 
not  like  our  ways;  and,  besides,  human  beings  are  nothing 
to  them;  they  think  they  are  only  freaks.  It  seems  to  me 
odd  that  he  should  put  the  astrologer  so  far  away;  he  could 
have  dumped  him  in  Germany  just  as  well,  where  he  would 
be  handy. 

"Far  away?"  said  Satan.  "To  me  no  place  is  far  away; 
distance  does  not  exist  for  me.  The  sun  is  less  than  a 

hundred  million  miles  from  here,  and  the  light  that  is 

93 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

falling  upon  us  has  taken  eight  minutes  to  come;  but  I 
can  make  that  flight,  or  any  other,  in  a  fraction  of  time 
so  minute  that  it  cannot  be  measured  by  a  watch.  I  have 
but  to  think  the  journey,  and  it  is  accomplished." 

I  held  out  my  hand  and  said,  "The  light  lies  upon  it; 
think  it  into  a  glass  of  wine,  Satan." 

He  did  it.     I  drank  the  wine. 

"Break  the  glass,"  he  said. 

I  broke  it. 

"There — you  see  it  is  real.  The  villagers  thought  the 
brass  balls  were  magic  stuff  and  as  perishable  as  smoke. 
They  were  afraid  to  touch  them.  You  are  a  curious  lot— 
your  race.  But  come  along;  I  have  business.  I  will  put 
you  to  bed."  Said  and  done.  Then  he  was  gone;  but  his 
voice  came  back  to  me  through  the  rain  and  darkness 
saying,  "Yes,  tell  Seppi,  but  no  other." 

It  was  the  answer  to  my  thought. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SLEEP  would  not  come.  It  was  not  because  I  was  proud 
of  my  travels  and  excited  about  having  been  around 
the  big  world  to  China,  and  feeling  contemptuous  of  B artel 
Sperling,  "the  traveler,"  as  he  called  himself,  and  looked 
down  upon  us  others  because  he  had  been  to  Vienna  once 
and  w^as  the  only  Eseldorf  boy  who  had  made  such  a  jour 
ney  and  seen  the  world's  wonders.  At  another  time  that 
would  have  kept  me  awake,  but  it  did  not  affect  me  now. 
No,  my  mind  was  filled  with  Nikolaus,  my  thoughts  ran 
upon  him  only,  and  the  good  days  we  had  seen  together  at 
romps  and  frolics  in  the  woods  and  the  fields  and  the  river 
in  the  long  summer  days,  and  skating  and  sliding  in  the 
winter  when  our  parents  thought  we  were  in  school.  And 
now  he  was  going  out  of  this  young  life,  and  the  summers 
and  winters  would  come  and  go,  and  we  others  would  rove 
and  play  as  before,  but  his  place  would  be  vacant;  we 
should  see  him  no  more.  To-morrow  he  would  not  suspect, 
but  would  be  as  he  had  always  been,  and  it  would  shock  me 
to  hear  him  laugh,  and  see  him  do  lightsome  and  frivolous 

things,  for  to  me  he  would  be  a  corpse,  with  waxen  hands 

95 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

and  dull  eyes,  and  I  should  see  the  shroud  around  his  face; 
and  next  day  he  would  not  suspect,  nor  the  next,  and  all 
the  time  his  handful  of  days  would  be  wasting  swiftly  away 
and  that  awful  thing  coming  nearer  and  nearer,  his  fate 
closing  steadily  around  him  and  no  one  knowing  it  but 
Seppi  and  me.  Twelve  days — only  twelve  days.  It  was 
awful  to  think  of.  I  noticed  that  in  my  thoughts  I  was 
not  calling  him  by  his  familiar  names,  Nick  and  Nicky,  but 
was  speaking  of  him  by  his  full  name,  and  reverently,  as 
one  speaks  of  the  dead.  Also,  as  incident  after  incident  of 
our  comradeship  came  thronging  into  my  mind  out  of  the 
past,  I  noticed  that  they  were  mainly  cases  where  I  had 
wronged  him  or  hurt  him,  and  they  rebuked  me  and  re 
proached  me,  and  my  heart  was  wrung  with  remorse,  just 
as  it  is  when  we  remember  our  unkindnesses  to  friends  who 
have  passed  beyond  the  veil,  and  \ve  wish  we  could  have 
them  back  again,  if  only  for  a  moment,  so  that  we  could 
go  on  our  knees  to  them  and  say,  "Have  pity,  and  forgive." 
Once  when  we  were  nine  years  old  he  went  a  long 
errand  of  nearly  two  miles  for  the  fruiterer,  who  gave  him 
a  splendid  big  apple  for  reward,  and  he  was  flying  home 
with  it,  almost  beside  himself  with  astonishment  and  de 
light,  and  I  met  him,  and  he  let  me  look  at  the  apple,  not 
thinking  of  treachery,  and  I  ran  off  with  it,  eating  it  as  I 
ran,  he  following  me  and  begging;  and  when  he  overtook 

me  I  offered  him  the  core,  which  was  all  that  was  left;  and 

96 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

I  laughed.  Then  he  turned  away,  crying,  and  said  he  j 
had  meant  to  give  it  to  his  little  sister.  That  smote  me,  for 
she  was  slowly  getting  well  of  a  sickness,  and  it  would  have 
been  a  proud  moment  for  him,  to  see  her  joy  and  surprise 
and  have  her  caresses.  But  I  was  ashamed  to  say  I  was 
ashamed,  and  only  said  something  rude  and  mean,  to  pre 
tend  I  did  not  care,  and  he  made  no  reply  in  words,  but 
there  was  a  wounded  look  in  his  face  as  he  turned  away 
toward  his  home  which  rose  before  me  many  times  in  after 
years,  in  the  night,  and  reproached  me  and  made  m 
ashamed  again.  It  had  grown  dim  in  my  mind,  by  and  b 
then  it  disappeared;  but  it  was  back  now,  and  not  dim.  _ 

Once  at  school,  when  we  were  eleven,  I  upset  my  ink 
and  spoiled  four  copy-books,  and  was  in  danger  of  severe 
punishment ;  but  I  put  it  upon  him,  and  he  got  the  whipping. 

And  only  last  year  I  had  cheated  him  in  a  trade,  giving 
him  a  large  fish-hook  which  was  partly  broken  through  for 
three  small  sound  ones.  The  first  fish  he  caught  broke  the 
hook,  but  he  did  not  know  I  was  blamable,  and  he  refused 
to  take  back  one  of  the  small  hooks  which  my  conscience 
forced  me  to  offer  him,  but  said,  "A  trade  is  a  trade;  the 
hook  was  bad,  but  that  was  not  your  fault." 
/""NO,  I  could  not  sleep.  These  little,  shabby  wrongs  up 
braided  me  and  tortured  me,  and  with  a  pain  much  sharper 
than  one  feels  when  the  wrongs  have  been  done  to  the 

living.    Nikolaus  was  living,  but  no  matter;  he  was  to  me 

97 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

as  one  already  dead.  The  wind  was  still  moaning  about 
the  eaves,  the  rain  still  pattering  upon  the  panes. 

In  the  morning  I  sought  out  Seppi  and  told  him.  It 
was  down  by  the  river.  His  lips  moved,  but  he  did  not 
say  anything,  he  only  looked  dazed  and  stunned,  and  his 
face  turned  very  white.  He  stood  like  that  a  few  moments, 
the  tears  welling  into  his  eyes,  then  he  turned  away  and  I 
locked  my  arm  in  his  and  we  walked  along  thinking,  but 
not  speaking.  We  crossed  the  bridge  and  \vandered  through 
the  meadows  and  up  among  the  hills  and  the  woods,  and 
at  last  the  talk  came  and  flowed  freely,  and  it  was  all  about 
Nikolaus  and  was  a  recalling  of  the  life  we  had  lived  with 
him.  And  every  now  and  then  Seppi  said,  as  if  to  himself: 

"Twelve  days! — less  than  twelve." 

We  said  we  must  be  with  him  all  the  time;  we  must 
have  all  of  him  we  could;  the  days  were  precious  now.  Yet 
we  did  not  go  to  seek  him.  It  w^ould  be  like  meeting  the 
dead,  and  we  were  afraid.  We  did  not  say  it,  but  that  was 
what  we  were  feeling.  And  so  it  gave  us  a  shock  when  we 
turned  a  curve  and  came  upon  Nikolaus  face  to  face.  He 
shouted,  gaily: 

"Hi-hi!  What  is  the  matter?  Have  you  seen  a 
ghost?" 

We  couldn't  speak,  but  there  was  no  occasion;  he  was 
willing  to  talk  for  us  all,  for  he  had  just  seen  Satan  and  was 

in  high  spirits  about  it.    Satan  had  told  him  about  our  trip 

98 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

to  China,  and  he  had  begged  Satan  to  take  him  a  journey, 
and  Satan  had  promised.  It  was  to  be  a  far  journey,  and 
wonderful  and  beautiful;  and  Nikolaus  had  begged  him  to 
take  us,  too,  but  he  said  no,  he  would  take  us  some  day, 
maybe,  but  not  now.  Satan  would  come  for  him  on  the 
13th,  and  Nikolaus  was  already  counting  the  hours,  he 
wras  so  impatient. 

That  was  the  fatal  day.  We  were  already  counting  the 
hours,  too. 

We  wrandered  many  a  mile,  always  following  paths 
which  had  been  our  favorites  from  the  days  when  we  were 
little,  and  always  we  talked  about  the  old  times.  All  the 
blitheness  was  with  Nikolaus;  we  others  could  not  shake 
off  our  depression.  Our  tone  toward  Nikolaus  was  so 
strangely  gentle  and  tender  and  yearning  that  he  noticed 
it,  and  was  pleased;  and  we  were  constantly  doing  him 
deferential  little  offices  of  courtesy,  and  saying,  "Wait,  let 
me  do  that  for  you,"  and  that  pleased  him,  too.  I  gave 
him  seven  fish-hooks — all  I  had — and  made  him  take  them ; 
and  Seppi  gave  him  his  new  knife  and  a  humming-top 
painted  red  and  yellow — atonements  for  swindles  practised 
upon  him  formerly,  as  I  learned  later,  and  probably  no 
longer  remembered  by  Nikolaus  now.  These  things  touched 
him,  and  he  said  he  could  not  have  believed  that  we  loved 
him  so;  and  his  pride  in  it  and  gratefulness  for  it  cut  us 

to  the  heart,  we  were  so  undeserving  of  them.    When  we 

99 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

parted  at  last,  he  was  radiant,  and  said  he  had  never  had 
such  a  happy  day. 

As  we  walked  along  homeward,  Seppi  said,  "We  alwrays 
prized  him,  but  never  so  much  as  now,  when  we  are  going 
to  lose  him." 

Next  day  and  every  day  we  spent  all  of  our  spare  time 
with  Nikolaus;  and  also  added  to  it  time  which  we  (and 
he)  stole  from  work  and  other  duties,  and  this  cost 
the  three  of  us  some  sharp  scoldings,  and  some  threats  of 
punishment.  Every  morning  two  of  us  woke  with  a  start 
and  a  shudder,  saying,  as  the  days  flew  along,  "Only  ten 
days  left";  "only  nine  days  left";  "only  eight";  "only 
seven."  Always  it  \vas  narrowing.  Always  Nikola-us  was 
gay  and  happy,  and  always  puzzled  because  we  were  not. 
He  wore  his  invention  to  the  bone  trying  to  invent  ways  to 
cheer  us  up,  but  it  was  only  a  hollow  success;  he  could  see 
that  our  jollity  had  no  heart  in  it,  and  that  the  laughs  we 
broke  into  came  up  against  some  obstruction  or  other  and 
suffered  damage  and  decayed  into  a  sigh.  He  tried  to 
find  out  what  the  matter  was,  so  that  he  could  help  us  out 
of  our  trouble  or  make  it  lighter  by  sharing  it  with  us;  so 
we  had  to  tell  many  lies  to  deceive  him  and  appease  him. 

But  the  most  distressing  thing  of  all  was  that  he  was 
always  making  plans,  and  often  they  went  beyond  the 
13th!  Whenever  that  happened  it  made  us  groan  in  spirit. 

All  his  mind  was  fixed  upon  finding  some  way  to  conquer 

100 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

our  depression  and  cheer  us  up;  and  at  last,  when  he  had 
but  three  days  to  live,  he  fell  upon  the  right  idea  and  was 
jubilant  over  it — a  boys-and-girls'  frolic  and  dance  in  the 
woods,  up  there  where  we  first  met  Satan,  and  this  was  to 
occur  on  the  14th.  It  was  ghastly,  for  that  was  his  funeral 
day.  We  couldn't  venture  to  protest;,  it  would  only  have 
brought  a  "Why?"  which  we  could  not  answer.  He  wanted 
us  to  help  him  invite  his  guests,  and  we  did  it — one  can 
refuse  nothing  to  a  dying  friend.  But  it  was  dreadful,  for 
really  we  were  inviting  them  to  his  funeral. 

It  was  an  awful  eleven  days;  and  yet,  with  a  lifetime 
stretching  back  between  to-day  and  then,  they  are  still  a 
grateful  memory  to  me,  and  beautiful.  In  effect  they 
were  days  of  companionship  with  one's  sacred  dead,  and 
I  have  known  no  comradeship  that  wras  so  close  or  so 
precious.  WTe  clung  to  the  hours  and  the  minutes,  counting 
them  as  they  wasted  away,  and  parting  with  them  with 
that  pain  and  bereavement  which  •  a  miser  feels  who  sees 
his  hoard  filched  from  him  coin  by  coin  by  robbers  and  is 
helpless  to  prevent  it. 

WThen  the  evening  of  the  last  day  came  we  stayed  out 
too  long;  Seppi  and  I  were  in  fault  for  that;  we  could  not 
bear  to  part  with  Nikolaus;  so  it  was  very  late  when  we 
left  him  at  his  door.  We  lingered  near  awhile,  listening; 
and  that  happened  which  we  were  fearing.  His  father  gave 

him  the  promised  punishment,  and  we  heard  his  shrieks. 

101 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

But  we  listened  only  a  moment,  then  hurried  away,  re 
morseful  for  this  thing  which  we  had  caused.  And  sorry  for 
the  father,  too;  our  thought  being,  "If  he  only  knew — if 
he  only  knew!" 

In  the  morning  Nikolaus  did  not  meet  us  at  the  ap 
pointed  place,  so  we  went  to  his  home  to  see  what  the 
matter  was.  His  mother  said: 

"His  father  is  out  of  all  patience  with  these  goings-on,, 
and  will  not  have  any  more  of  it.  Half  the  time  when 
Nick  is  needed  he  is  not  to  be  found;  then  it  turns  out 
that  he  has  been  gadding  around  with  you  two.  His  father 
gave  him  a  flogging  last  night.  It  always  grieved  me  be 
fore,  and  many's  the  time  I  have  begged  him  off  and 
saved  him,  but  this  time  he  appealed  to  me  in  vain,  for  I 
was  out  of  patience  myself." 

"I  wish  you  had  saved  him  just  this  one  time,"  I  said, 
my  voice  trembling  a  little;  "it  would  ease  a  pain  in  your 
heart  to  remember  it  some  day." 

She  was  ironing  at  the  time,  and  her  back  was  partly 
toward  me.  She  turned  about  writh  a  startled  or  wonder 
ing  look  in  her  face  and  said,  "What  do  you  mean  by 
that?" 

I  was  not  prepared,  and  didn't  know  anything  to  say; 
so  it  was  awkward,  for  she  kept  looking  at  me;  but  Seppi 
was  alert  and  spoke  up : 

f'Why,  of  course  it  would  be  pleasant  to  remember^ 

102 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

for  the  very  reason  we  were  out  so  late  was  that  Nikolaus 
got  to  telling  how  good  you  are  to  him,  and  how  he  never 
got  whipped  when  you  were  by  to  save  him;  and  he  was  so 
full  of  it,  and  we  were  so  full  of  the  interest  of  it,  that  none 
of  us  noticed  how  late  it  was  getting." 

"Did  he  say  that?  Did  he?"  and  she  put  her  apron  to 
her  eyes. 

"You  can  ask  Theodor — he  w^ill  tell  you  the  same." 

"It  is  a  dear,  good  lad,  my  Nick,"  she  said.  "I  am 
sorry  I  let  him  get  whipped;  I  will  never  do  it  again.  To 
think — all  the  time  I  was  sitting  here  last  night,  fretting 
and  angry  at  him,  he  was  loving  me  and  praising  me! 
Dear,  dear,  if  we  could  only  know!  Then  we  shouldn't 
ever  go  wrong;  but  we  are  only  poor,  dumb  beasts  groping 
around  and  making  mistakes.  I  sha'n't  ever  think  of  last 
night  without  a  pang." 

She  was  like  all  the  rest;  it  seemed  as  if  nobody  could 
open  a  mouth,  in  these  wretched  days,  without  saying  some 
thing  that  made  us  shiver.  They  were  "groping  around," 
and  did  not  know  what  true,  sorrowfully  true  things  they 
were  saying  by  accident. 

Seppi  asked  if  Nikolaus  might  go  out  with  us. 

"I  am  sorry,"  she  answered,  "but  he  can't.  To  punish 
him  further,  his  father  doesn't  allow  him  to  go  out  of  the 
house  to-day." 

We  had  a  great  hope!     I  saw  it  in  Seppi's  eyes.     We 

103 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

thought,  "If  he  cannot  leave  the  house,  he  cannot  be 
drowned."  Seppi  asked,  to  make  sure: 

"Must  he  stay  in  all  day,  or  only  the  morning?" 

"All  day.  It's  such  a  pity,  too;  it's  a  beautiful  day, 
and  he  is  so  unused  to  being  shut  up.  But  he  is  busy 
planning  his  party,  and  maybe  that  is  company  for  him.  I 
do  hope  he  isn't  too  lonesome." 

Seppi  saw  that  in  her  eye  which  emboldened  him  to  ask 
if  we  might  go  up  and  help  him  pass  his  time. 

"And  welcome!"  she  said,  right  heartily.  "Now  I  call 
that  real  friendship,  when  you  might  be  abroad  in  the  fields 
and  the  woods,  having  a  happy  time.  You  are  good  boys, 
I'll  allow  that,  though  you  don't  always  find  satisfactory 
ways  of  improving  it.  Take  these  cakes — for  yourselves — 
and  give  him  this  one,  from  his  mother." 

The  first  thing  we  noticed  when  we  entered  Nikolaus's 
room  was  the  time — a  quarter  to  10.  Could  that  be  cor 
rect?  Only  such  a  few  minutes  to  live!  I  felt  a  contrac 
tion  at  my  heart.  Nikolaus  jumped  up  and  gave  us  a  glad 
welcome.  He  was  in  good  spirits  over  his  plannings  for  his 
party  and  had  not  been  lonesome. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said,  "and  look  at  what  I've  been  doing. 
And  I've  finished  a  kite  that  you  will  say  is  a  beauty.  It's 
drying,  in  the  kitchen;  I'll  fetch  it." 

He  had  been  spending  his  penny  savings  in  fanciful 

trifles  of  various  kinds,  to  go  as  prizes  in  the  games,  and 

104 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

they  were  marshaled  with  fine  and  showy  effect  upon  the 
table.  He  said: 

"Examine  them  at  your  leisure  while  I  get  mother  to 
touch  up  the  kite  with  her  iron  if  it  isn't  dry  enough  yet." 

Then  he  tripped  out  and  went  clattering  down-stairs, 
whistling. 

We  did  not  look  at  the  things;  we  couldn't  take  any 
interest  in  anything  but  the  clock.  We  sat  staring  at  it 
in  silence,  listening  to  the  ticking,  and  every  time  the 
minute-hand  jumped  we  nodded  recognition — one  minute 
fewer  to  cover  in  the  race  for  life  or  for  death.  Finally 
Seppi  drew  a  deep  breath  and  said: 

"Two  minutes  to  ten.  Seven  minutes  more  and  he  will 
pass  the  death-point.  Theodor,  he  is  going  to  be  saved! 
He's  going  to— 

"Hush!  I'm  on  needles.  Watch  the  clock  and  keep 
still." 

Five  minutes  more.  We  were  panting  with  the  strain 
and  the  excitement.  Another  three  minutes,  and  there  was 
a  footstep  on  the  stair. 

"Saved!"    And  we  jumped  up  and  faced  the  door. 

The  old  mother  entered,  bringing  the  kite.  "Isn't  it  a 
beauty?"  she  said.  "And,  dear  me,  how  he  has  slaved  over 
it — ever  since  daylight,  I  think,  and  only  finished  it  awhile 
before  you  came."  She  stood  it  against  the  wall,  and 

stepped  back  to  take  a  view  of  it.    "He  drew  the  pictures 
8  105 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

his  own  self,  and  I  think  they  are  very  good.  The  church 
isn't  so  very  good,  I'll  have  to  admit,  but  look  at  the 
bridge — any  one  can  recognize  the  bridge  in  a  minute.  He 
asked  me  to  bring  it  up.  .  .  .  Dear  me!  it's  seven  minutes 
past  ten,  and  I— 

"But  where  is  he?" 

"He?    Oh,  he'll  be  here  soon;  he's  gone  out  a  minute." 

"Gone  out?" 

'Yes.  Just  as  he  came  down-stairs  little  Lisa's  mother 
came  in  and  said  the  child  had  wandered  off  somewhere, 
and  as  she  was  a  little  uneasy  I  told  Nikolaus  to  never 
mind  about  his  father's  orders — go  and  look  her  up.  ... 
Why,  how  white  you  t\vo  do  look!  I  do  believe  you  are 
sick.  Sit  down;  I'll  fetch  something.  That  cake  has  dis 
agreed  with  you.  It  is  a  little  heavy,  but  I  thought — •" 

She  disappeared  without  finishing  her  sentence,  and  we 
hurried  at  once  to  the  back  window  and  looked  toward  the 
river.  There  was  a  great  crowd  at  the  other  end  of  the 
bridge,  and  people  wrere  flying  toward  that  point  from  every 
direction. 

"Oh,  it  is  all  over — poor  Nikolaus!  Why,  oh,  why  did 
she  let  him  get  out  of  the  house!" 

"Come  away,"  said  Seppi,  half  sobbing,  "come  quick— 
we  can't  bear  to  meet  her;  in  five  minutes  she  will  know." 

But  we  were  not  to  escape.     She  came  upon  us  at  the 

foot  of  the  stairs,  with  her  cordials  in  her  hands,  and  made 

106 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

us  come  in  and  sit  down  and  take  the  medicine.  Then  she 
watched  the  effect,  and  it  did  not  satisfy  her;  so  she  made 
us  wait  longer,  and  kept  upbraiding  herself  for  giving  us 
the  unwholesome  cake. 

Presently  the  thing  happened  which  we  were  dreading.        -* 
There  was  a  sound  of  tramping  and  scraping  outside,  and      /" 
a  crowd  came  solemnly  in,  with  heads  uncovered,  and  laid 
the  two  drowned  bodies  on  the  bed. 

"Oh,  my  God!"  that  poor  mother  cried  out,  and  fell 
on  her  knees,  and  put  her  arms  about  her  dead  boy  and 
began  to  cover  the  wet  face  with  kisses.  "Oh,  it  was  I 
that  sent  him,  and  I  have  been  his  death.  If  I  had  obeyed, 
and  kept  him  in  the  house,  this  would  not  have  happened. 
And  I  am  rightly  punished;  I  was  cruel  to  him  last  night, 
and  him  begging  me,  his  own  mother,  to  be  his  friend." 

And  so  she  went  on  and  on,  and  all  the  women  cried, 
and  pitied  her,  and  tried  to  comfort  her,  but  she  could  not 
forgive  herself  and  could  not  be  comforted,  and  kept  on 
saying  if  she  had  not  sent  him  out  he  would  be  alive  and 
well  now,  and  she  was  the  cause  of  his  death. 

It  shows  how  foolish  people  are  when  they  blame  them 
selves  for  anything  they  have  done.  Satan  knows,  and  he 
said  nothing  happens  that  your  first  act  hasn't  arranged  to 
happen  and  made  inevitable;  and  so,  of  your  own  motion 
you  can't  ever  alter  the  scheme  or  do  a  thing  that  will 

break  a  link.     Next  we  heard  screams,  and  Frau  Brandt 

107 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

came  wildly  plowing  and  plunging  through  the  crowd 
with  her  dress  in  disorder  and  hair  flying  loose,  and  flung 
herself  upon  her  dead  child  with  moans  and  kisses  and 
pleadings  and  endearments;  and  by  and  by  she  rose  up 
almost  exhausted  with  her  outpourings  of  passionate  emo 
tion,  and  clenched  her  fist  and  lifted  it  toward  the  sky,  and 
her  tear-drenched  face  grew  hard  and  resentful,  and  she  said : 

"For  nearly  two  weeks  I  have  had  dreams  and  presenti 
ments  and  warnings  that  death  was  going  to  strike  what  was 
most  precious  to  me,  and  day  and  night  and  night  and  day 
/  I  have  groveled  in  the  dirt  before  Him  praying  Him  to 
!  have  pity  on  my  innocent  child  and  save  it  from  harm — 
XJ  and  here  is  His  answer!" 

Why,  He  had  saved  it  from  harm — but  she  did  not  know. 

She  wiped  the  tears  from  her  eyes  and  cheeks,  and 
stood  awhile  gazing  down  at  the  child  and  caressing  its 
face  and  its  hair  with  her  hand;  then  she  spoke  again  in 
that  bitter  tone:  "But  in  His  hard  heart  is  no  compassion. 
I  will  never  pray  again." 

She  gathered  her  dead  child  to  her  bosom  and  strode 
/  away,  the  crowd  falling  back  to  let  her  pass,  and  smitten 
dumb  by  the  awful  words  they  had  heard.  Ah,  that  poor 
woman!  It  is  as  Satan  said,  we  do  not  know  good  fortune 
from  bad,  and  are  always  mistaking  the  one  for  the  other. 
Many  a  time  since  then  I  have  heard  people  pray  to  God 

to  spare  the  life  of  sick  persons,  but  I  have  never  done  it. 

108 


Painting  by  N.  C.  Wyeth 
THERE    WAS    A    SOUND    OF    TRAMPING    OUTSIDE    AND    THE    CROWD    CAME    SOLEMNLY    IN 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

Both  funerals  took  place  at  the  same  time  in  our  little 
church  next  day.  Everybody  was  there,  including  the 
party  guests.  Satan  was  there,  too;  which  was  proper,  for 
it  was  on  account  of  his  efforts  that  the  funerals  had  hap 
pened.  Nikolaus  had  departed  this  life  without  absolution, 
and  a  collection  was  taken  up  for  masses,  to  get  him  out 
of  purgatory.  Only  two-thirds  of  the  required  money  was 
gathered,  and  the  parents  were  going  to  try  to  borrow  the 
rest,  but  Satan  furnished  it.  He  told  us  privately  that  there 
was  no  purgatory,  but  he  had  contributed  in  order  that 
Nikolaus's  parents  and  their  friends  .might  be  saved  from 
worry  and  distress.  We  thought  it  very  good  of  him,  but 
he  said  money  did  not  cost  him  anything. 

At  the  graveyard  the  body  of  little  Lisa  was  seized  for 
debt  by  a  carpenter  to  whom  the  mother  owed  fifty  grosch- 
en  for  work  done  the  year  before.  She  had  never  been 
able  to  pay  this,  and  was  not  able  now.  The  carpenter 
took  the  corpse  home  and  kept  it  four  days  in  his  cellar,  the 
mother  weeping  and  imploring  about  his  house  all  the  time; 
then  he  buried  it  in  his  brother's  cattle-yard,  without  relig 
ious  ceremonies.  It  drove  the  mother  wild  with  grief  and 
shame,  and  she  forsook  her  work  and  went  daily  about  the 
town,  cursing  the  carpenter  and  blaspheming  the  laws  of 
the  emperor  and  the  church,  and  it  was  pitiful  to  see.  Seppi 
asked  Satan  to  interfere,  but  he  said  the  carpenter  and  the 

rest  were  members  of  the  human  race  and  were  acting  quite 

109 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

neatly  for  that  species  of  animal.  He  would  interfere  if  he 
found  a  horse  acting  in  such  a  way,  and  we  must  inform 
him  when  we  came  across  that  kind  of  horse  doing  that 
kind  of  a  human  thing,  so  that  he  could  stop  it.  We  be 
lieved  this  was  sarcasm,  for  of  course  there  wasn't  any 
such  horse. 

But  after  a  few  days  we  found  that  we  could  not  abide 
that  poor  woman's  distress,  so  we  begged  Satan  to  examine 
her  several  possible  careers,  and  see  if  he  could  not  change 
her,  to  her  profit,  to  a  new  one.  He  said  the  longest  of  her 
careers  as  they  now  stood  gave  her  forty -two  years  to  live, 
and  her  shortest  one  twenty-nine,  and  that  both  were 
charged  with  grief  and  hunger  and  cold  and  pain.  The  only 
improvement  he  could  make  would  be  to  enable  her  to  skip 
a  certain  three  minutes  from  now;  and  he  asked  us  if  he 
should  do  it.  This  was  such  a  short  time  to  decide  in  that 
we  went  to  pieces  with  nervous  excitement,  and  before  we 
could  pull  ourselves  together  and  ask  for  particulars  he 
said  the  time  would  be  up  in  a  few  more  seconds;  so  then 
we  gasped  out,  "Do  it!" 

"It  is  done,"  he  said;  "she  was  going  around  a  corner; 
I  have  turned  her  back;  it  has  changed  her  career." 

"Then  what  will  happen,  Satan?" 

"It  is  happening  now.  She  is  having  words  with 
Fischer,  the  weaver.  In  his  anger  Fischer  will  straightway 

do  what  he  would  not  have  done  but  for  this  accident.    He 

110 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

was  present  when  she  stood  over  her  child's  body  and 
uttered  those  blasphemies." 

"What  will  he  do?" 

"He  is  doing  it  now — betraying  her.  In  three  days  she 
will  go  to  the  stake." 

We  could  not  speak;  we  were  frozen  with  horror,  for 
if  we  had  not  meddled  with  her  career  she  would  have  been 
spared  this  awful  fate.  Satan  noticed  these  thoughts,  and 
said: 

"What  you  are  thinking  is  strictly  human-like — that) 
is  to  say,  foolish.  The  woman  is  advantaged.  Die  when 
she  might,  she  would  go  to  heaven.  By  this  prompt  death 
she  gets  twenty-nine  years  more  of  heaven  than  she  is 
entitled  to,  and  escapes  twenty-nine  years  of  misery  here." 

A  moment  before  we  were  bitterly  making  up  our  minds 
that  we  would  ask  no  more  favors  of  Satan  for  friends  of 
ours,  iorjie  jdid^not^eem  tojmowjmy  way  todoa  person 
a  kindnessjmt_by_killing  him ;  but  the  whole  aspect  of  the 
TSsewas  changed  now,  and  we  were  glad  of  what  we  had 
done  and  full  of  happiness  in  the  thought  of  it. 

After  a  little  I  began  to  feel  troubled  about  Fischer,  and 
asked,  timidly,  "Does  this  episode  change  Fischer's  life- 
scheme,  Satan?" 

"Change  it?  Why,  certainly.  And  radically.  If  he 
had  not  met  Frau  Brandt  awhile  ago  he  would  die  next 

year,  thirty -four  years  of  age.    Now  he  will  live  to  be  ninety, 

ill 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

and  have  a  pretty  prosperous  and  comfortable  life  of  it,  as 
human  lives  go." 

We  felt  a  great  joy  and  pride  in  what  we  had  done  for 
Fischer,  and  were  expecting  Satan  to  sympathize  with  this 
feeling;  but  he  showed  no  sign,  and  this  made  us  uneasy. 
We  waited  for  him  to  speak,  but  he  didn't;  so,  to  assuage 
our  solicitude  we  had  to  ask  him  if  there  was  any  defect  in 
Fischer's  good  luck.  Satan  considered  the  question  a 
moment,  then  said,  with  some  hesitation : 

"  Well,  the  fact  is,  it  is  a  delicate  point.  Under  his  sev 
eral  former  possible  life-careers  he  was  going  to  heaven." 

We  were  aghast.     "Oh,  Satan!  and  under  this  one — 

'6 There,  don't  be  so  distressed.  You  were  sincerely 
trying  to  do  him  a  kindness;  let  that  comfort  you." 

"Oh,  dear,  dear,  that  cannot  comfort  us.  You  ought  ta 
have  told  us  what  we  were  doing,  then  we  wouldn't  have 
acted  so." 

But  it  made  no  impression  on  him.  He  had  never  felt 
a  pain  or  a  sorrow,  and  did  not  know  what  they  were, 
in  any  really  informing  way.  He  had  no  knowledge  of  them 
except  theoretically — that  is  to  say,  inteJfectuall^,^And  of 
course  that  is  no  goocT^One  can  never  get  any  but  a  loose 
and  ignorant  notion  of  such  things  except  by  experience. 
We  tried  our  best  to  make  him  comprehend  the  awful 
thing  that  had  been  done  and  how  we  were  compromised 
by  it,  but  he  couldn't  seem  to  get  hold  of  it.  He  said  he 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

did  not  think  it  important  where  Fischer  w^ent  to;  in 
heaven  he  would  not  be  missed,  there  wrere  "plenty  there." 
We  tried  to  make  him  see  that  he  was  missing  the  point 
entirely ;  that  Fischer,  and  not  other  people,  was  the  proper 
one  to  decide  about  the  importance  of  it;  but  it  all  went 
for  nothing;  he  said  he  did  not  care  for  Fischer — there/ 
wrere  plenty  more  Fischers. 

The  next  minute  Fischer  wrent  by  on  the  other  side  of 
the  wray,  and  it  made  us  sick  and  faint  to  see  him,  remem 
bering  the  doom  that  was  upon  him,  and  we  the  cause  of  it. 
And  how  unconscious  he  was  that  anything  had  happened 
to  him!  You  could  see  by  his  elastic  step  and  his  alert 
manner  that  he  was  well  satisfied  with  himself  for  doing 
that  hard  turn  for  poor  Frau  Brandt.  He  kept  glancing 
back  over  his  shoulder  expectantly.  And,  sure  enough, 
pretty  soon  Frau  Brandt  followed  after,  in  charge  of  the 
officers  and  wearing  jingling  chains.  A  mob  was  in  her 
wake,  jeering  and  shouting,  "Blasphemer  and  heretic!" 
and  some  among  them  were  neighbors  and  friends  of  her 
happier  days.  Some  were  trying  to  strike  her,  and  the 
officers  were  not  taking  as  much  trouble  as  they  might  to 
keep  them  from  it. 

"Oh,  stop  them,  Satan!"  It  was  out  before  we  remem 
bered  that  he  could  not  interrupt  them  for  a  moment  with 
out  changing  their  whole  after-lives.  He  puffed  a  little 

puff  toward  them  writh  his  lips  and  they  began  to  reel  and 

113 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

stagger  and  grab  at  the  empty  air;  then  they  broke  apart 
and  fled  in  every  direction,  shrieking,  as  if  in  intolerable  pain. 
He  had  crushed  a  rib  of  each  of  them  with  that  little  puff. 
We  could  not  help  asking  if  their  life-chart  was  changed. 

;<Yes,  entirely.  Some  have  gained  years,  some  have 
lost  them.  Some  few  will  profit  in  various  ways  by  the 
change,  but  only  that  few." 

We  did  not  ask  if  we  had  brought  poor  Fischer's  luck 
to  any  of  them.  We  did  not  wish  to  know.  We  fully  be 
lieved  in  Satan's  desire  to  do  us  kindnesses,  but  we  were 
losing  confidence  in  his  judgment.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
our  growing  anxiety  to  have  him  look  over  our  life-charts 
and  suggest  improvements  began  to  fade  out  and  give 
place  to  other  interests. 

For  a  day  or  two  the  whole  village  was  a  chattering 
turmoil  over  Fran  Brandt's  case  and  over  the  mysterious 
calamity  that  had  overtaken  the  mob,  and  at  her  trial  the 
place  was  crowded.  She  was  easily  convicted  of  her  blas 
phemies,  for  she  uttered  those  terrible  words  again  and 
said  she  would  not  take  them  back.  When  warned  that  she 
wTas  imperiling  her  life,  she  said  they  could  take  it  in  wel 
come,  she  did  not  want  it,  she  would  rather  live  with  the 
professional  _dgvils  in  perdition  than  with^thfig£_JEgdtators-. 
in  the  village.  They  accused  her  of  Breaking  all  those  ribs 
by  witcKcraftr  and  asked  her  if  she  was  not  a  witch?  She 

answered  scornfully: 

114 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

"No.  If  I  had  that  power  would  any  of  you  holy  hypo 
crites  be  alive  five  minutes?  No;  I  would  strike  you  all 
dead.  Pronounce  your  sentence  and  let  me  go;  I  am  tired 
of  your  society." 

So  they  found  her  guilty,  and  she  was  excommunicated 
and  cut  off  from  the  joys  of  heaven  and  doomed  to  the  fires 
of  hell;  then  she  \vas  clothed  in  a  coarse  robe  and  delivered 
to  the  secular  arm,  and  conducted  to  the  market-place,  the 
bell  solemnly  tolling  the  while.  We  saw  her  chained  to  the 
stake,  and  saw  the  first  thin  film  of  blue  smoke  rise  on  the 
still  air.  Then  her  hard  face  softened,  and  she  looked  upon 
the  packed  crowd  in  front  of  her  and  said,  with  gentleness: 

"We  played  together  once,  in  long-agone  days  when  we 
were  innocent  little  creatures.  For  the  sake  of  tha.t,  I 
forgive  you." 

WTe  went  away  then,  and  did  not  see  the  fires  consume 
her,  but  we  heard  the  shrieks,  although  we  put  our  fingers 
in  our  ears.  When  they  ceased  we  knew  she  was  in  heaven, 
notwithstanding  the  excommunication;  and  we  were  glad 
of  her  death  and  not  sorry  that  we  had  brought  it  about. 

One  day,  a  little  while  after  this,  Satan  appeared  again. 
We  were  always  watching  out  for  him,  for  life  wras  never 
very  stagnant  when  he  was  by.  He  came  upon  us  at  that 
place  in  the  woods  where  we  had  first  met  him.  Being 
boys,  we  wanted  to  be  entertained;  we  asked  him  to  do  a 
show  for  us. 

115 


• 

THE  MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"Very  well,"  he  said;  "would  you  like  to  see  a  history 
of  the  progress  of  the  human  race? — its  development  of 
that  product  which  it  calls  civilization?" 

We  said  we  should. 

***  So,  with  a  thought,  he  turned  the  place  into  the  Garden 
of  Eden,  and  we  saw  Abel  praying  by  his  altar;  then  Cain 
came  walking  toward  him  with  his  club,  and  did  not  seem 
to  see  us,  and  would  have  stepped  on  my  foot  if  I  had  not 
drawn  it  in.  He  spoke  to  his  brother  in  a  language  which 
we  did  not  understand;  then  he  grew  violent  and  threaten 
ing,  and  we  knew  what  was  going  to  happen,  and  turned 
away  our  heads  for  the  moment;  but  we  heard  the  crash  of 
the  blows  and  heard  the  shrieks  and  the  groans;  then  there 
was  silence,  and  we  saw  Abel  lying  in  his  blood  and  gasping 
out  his  life,  and  Cain  standing  over  him  and  looking  down 
at  him,  vengeful  and  unrepentant. 

•» 

Then  the  vision  vanished,  and  was  followed  by  a  long 
series  of  unknown  wars,  murders,  and  massacres.  Next  we 
had  the  Flood,  and  the  Ark  tossing  around  in  the  stormy 
waters,  with  lofty  mountains  in  the  distance  showing  veiled 
and  dim  through  the  rain.  Satan  said: 

"The  progress  of  your  race  was  not  satisfactory.  It  is 
to  have  another  chance  now." 

The  scene  changed,  and  we  saw  Noah  overcome  with 
wine. 

Next,  we  had  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and  "the  attempt 

116 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

to  discover  two  or  three  respectable  persons  there,"  as 
Satan  described  it.  Next,  Lot  and  his  daughters  in  the 
cave. 

Next  came  the  Hebraic  wars,  and  we  saw  the  victims 
massacre  the  survivors  and  their  cattle,  and  save  the  young 
girls  alive  and  distribute  them  around. 

Next  we  had  Jael;  and  saw  her  slip  into  the  tent  and 
drive  the  nail  into  the  temple  of  her  sleeping  guest;  and 
we  were  so  close  that  when  the  blood  gushed  out  it  trickled 
in  a  little,  red  stream  to  our  feet,  and  we  could  have  stained 
our  hands  in  it  if  we  had  wranted  to. 

Next  .we  had  Egyptian  wars,  Greek  wars,  Roman  wars, 
ideous  drenchings  of  the  earth  with  blood ;  and  we  saw  the 
reacheries  of  the  Romans  toward  the  Carthaginians,  and 
tie  sickening  spectacle  of  the  massacre  of  those  brave 
>eople.  Also  we  saw  Caesar  invade  Britain— "not  that 
iiose  barbarians  had  done  him  any  harm,  but  because  he 
Tanted  their  land,  and  desired  to  confer  the  blessings  of 
ivilization  upon  their  widows  and  orphans,"  as  Satan 
xplained. 

Next,   Christianity  was  born.     Then  ages  of  Europe  f 

passed  in  review  before  us,  and  \ve  saw  Christianity  and 
Civilization    march    hand    in    hand    through    those    ages, 
"leaving  famine  and  death  and  desolation  in  their  wake,      /       \ 
and  other  signs  of  the  progress  of  the  human  race,"  as/ 

Satan  observed. 

117 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

f  And  always  we  had  wars,  and  more  wars,  and  still 
other  wars — all  over  Europe,  all  over  the  world.  "Some 
times  in  the  private  interest  of  royal  families,"  Satan  said, 
"sometimes  to  crush  a  weak  nation;  but  never  a  war 
started  by  the  aggressor  for  any  clean  purpose — there  is  no 
such  war  in  the  history  of  the  race." 

"Now,"  said  Satan,  "you  have  seen  your  progress  down 
to  the  present,  and  you  must  confess  that  it  is  wonderful— 
in  its  wray.  We  must  now  exhibit  the  future." 

He  showed  us  slaughters  more  terrible  in  their  destruc 
tion  of  life,  more  devastating  in  their  engines  of  war,  than 
any  we  had  seen. 

"You  perceive,"  he  said,  "that  you  have  made  contin 
ual  progress.  Cain  did  his  murder  with  a  club;  the  He 
brews  did  their  murders  with  javelins  and  swords;  .  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  added  protective  armor  and  the  fine 
arts  of  military  organization  and  generalship;  the  Chris 
tian  has  added  guns  and  gunpowder;  a  few  centuries  from 
now  he  will  have  so  greatly  improved  the  deadly  effective 
ness  of  his  weapons  of  slaughter  that  all  men  will  confess 
without  Christian  civilization  war  must  have  remained 
a  poor  and  trifling  thing  to  the  end  of  time." 

Then  he  began  to  laugh  in  the  most  unfeeling  wray, 
and  make  fun  of  the  human  race,  although  he  knew  that 
what  he  had  been  saying  shamed  us  and  wounded  us. 

No  one  but  an  angel  could  have  acted  so;  but  suffering 

118 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

is  nothing  to  them;  they  do  not  know  what  it  is,  except 
by  hearsay. 

More  than  once  Seppi  and  I  had  tried  in  a  humble  and 
diffident  way  to  convert  him,  and  as  he  had  remained 
silent  we  had  taken  his  silence  as  a  sort  of  encouragement; 
necessarily,  then,  this  talk  of  his  was  a  disappointment  to 
us,  for  it  showed  that  we  had  made  no  deep  impression 
upon  him.  The  thought  made  us  sad,  and  we  knew  then  how 
the  missionary  must  feel  when  he  has  been  cherishing  a 
glad  hope  and  has  seen  it  blighted.  We  kept  our  grief  to 
ourselves,  knowing  that  this  was  not  the  time  to  continue 
our  work.  , 

Satan  laughed  his  unkind  laugh  to  a  finish;  then  he  N  j 
said:  "It  is  a  remarkable  progress.  In  five  or  six  thousand 
years  five  or  six  high  civilizations  have  risen,  flourished, 
commanded  the  wonder  of  the  world,  then  faded  out  and 
disappeared;  and  not  one  of  them  except  the  latest  ever 
invented  any  sweeping  and  adequate  way  to  kill  people. 
They  all  did  their  best — to  kill  being  the  chiefest  ambition 
of  the  human  race  and  the  earliest  incident  in  its  history— 
but  only  the  Christian  civilization  has  scored  a  triumph  to 
be  proud  of.  Two  or  three  centuries  from  now  it  will  be 
recognized  that  all  the  competent  killers  are  Christians ;  then 
the  pagan  world  will  go  to  school  to  the  Christian — not  to 
acquire  his  religion,  but  his  guns.  The  Turk  and  the  China 
man  will  buy  those  to  kill  missionaries  and  converts  with." 

119 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

By  this  time  his  theater  was  at  work  again,  and  before 
our  eyes  nation  after  nation  drifted  by,  during  two  or  three 
centuries,  a  mighty  procession,  an  endless  procession,  raging, 
struggling,  wrallowing  through  seas  of  blood,  smothered  in 
battle-smoke  through  which  the  flags  glinted  and  the  red 
jets  from  the  cannon  darted;  and  always  we  heard  the 
thunder  of  the  guns  and  the  cries  of  the  dying. 

lAnd  what  does  it  amount  to?"  said  Satan,  with  his 
|  evil  chuckle.  "Nothing  at  all.  You  gain  nothing;  you 
''  always  come  out  where  you  went  in.  For  a  million  years 
the  race  has  gone  on  monotonously  propagating  itself  and 
monotonously  reperforming  this  dull  nonsense — to  what 
end?  No  wisdom  can  guess!  Who  gets  a  profit  out  of  it? 
Nobody  but  a  parcel  of  usurping  little  monarchs  and  no 
bilities  who  despise  you;  would  feel  defiled  if  you  touched 
them;  would  shut  the  door  in  your  face  if  you  proposed  to 
call;  whom  you  slave  for,  fight  for,  die  for,  and  are  not 
ashamed  of  it,  but  proud;  whose  existence  is  a  perpetual 
insult  to  you  and  you  are  afraid  to  resent  it;  who  are  men 
dicants  supported  by  your  alms,  yet  assume  toward  you  the 
airs  of  benefactor  toward  beggar;  who  address  you  in  the 
language  of  master  to  slave,  and  are  answered  in  the  lan 
guage  of  slave  to  master;  who  are  worshiped  by  you  with 
your  mouth,  while  in  your  heart — if  you  have  one — you 
despise  yourselves  for  it.  The  first  man  was  a  hypocrite 

d  a  coward,  qualities  which  have  not  yet  failed  in  his 

120 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

line;  it  is  the  foundation  upon  which  all  civilizations  have 
been  built.  Drink  to  their  perpetuation!  Drink  to  their 
augmentation!  Drink  to—  Then  he  saw  by  our  faces 
how  much  we  were  hurt,  and  he  cut  his  sentence  short  and 
stopped  chuckling,  and  his  manner  changed.  He  said, 
gently:  "No,  we  will  drink  one  another's  health,  and  let 
civilization  go.  The  wine  which  has  flown  to  our  hands 
out  of  space  by  desire  is  earthly,  and  good  enough  for  that 
other  toast;  but  throw  away  the  glasses;  we  will  drink  this 
one  in  wine  which  has  not  visited  this  world  before." 

We  obeyed,  and  reached  up  and  received  the  new  cups 
as  they  descended.  They  were  shapely  and  beautiful  gob 
lets,  but  they  were  not  made  of  any  material  that  we  were 
acquainted  with.  They  seemed  to  be  in  motion,  they 
seemed  to- be  alive;  and  certainly  the  colors  in  them  were 
in  motion.  They  were  very  brilliant  and  sparkling,  and  of 
every  tint,  and  they  were  never  still,  but  flowed  to  and  fro 
in  rich  tides  which  met  and  broke  and  flashed  out  dainty 
explosions  of  enchanting  color.  I  think  it  was  most  like 
opals  washing  about  in  waves  and  flashing  out  their  splendid 
fires.  But  there  is  nothing  to  compare  the  wine  with.  We 
drank  it,  and  felt  a  strange  and  witching  ecstasy  as  of 
heaven  go  stealing  through  us,  and  Seppi's  eyes  filled  and 
he  said,  worshipingly : 

"We  shall  be  there  some  day,  and  then- 
He  glanced  furtively  at  Satan,  and  I  think  he  hoped 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

Satan  would  say,  "Yes,  you  will  be  there  some  day,"  but 
Satan  seemed  to  be  thinking  about  something  else,  and 
said  nothing.  This  made  me  feel  ghastly,  for  I  knew  he 
had  heard;  nothing,  spoken  or  unspoken,  ever  escaped  him. 
Poor  Seppi  looked  distressed,  and  did  not  finish  his  remark. 
The  goblets  rose  and  clove  their  way  into  the  sky,  a  triplet 
of  radiant  sundogs,  and  disappeared.  Why  didn't  they 
stay?  It  seemed  a  bad  sign,  and  depressed  me.  Should  I 
ever  see  mine  again?  Would  Seppi  ever  see  his? 


CHAPTER  IX 

IT  was  wonderful,  the  mastery  Satan  had  over  time  and 
distance.    For  him  they  did  not  exist.     He  called  them 
human  inventions,  and  said  they  were  artificialities.     We 
often  went  to  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  globe  with  him, 
and  stayed  weeks  and  months,  and  yet  were  gone  only  a 
fraction  of  a  second,  as  a  rule.    You  could  prove  it  by  the 
clock.     One  day  when  our  people  were  in  such  awful  dis 
tress  because  the  witch  commission  were  afraid  to  proceed 
against  the  astrologer  and  Father  Peter's  household,  or 
against  any,  indeed,  but  the  poor  and  the  friendless,  they 
lost  patience  and  took  to  witch-hunting  on  their  own  score, 
and  began  to  chase  a  born  lady  who  was  known  to  have""" 
the  habit  of  curing  people  by  devilish  arts,  such  as  bathing 
them,  washing  them,  and  nourishing  them  instead  of  bleed 
ing  them  and  purging  them  through  the  ministrations  of  a  | 
barber-surgeon  in  the  proper  way.    She  came  flying  down,  j 
with  the  howling  and  cursing  mob  after  her,  and  tried  to 
take  refuge  in  houses,  but  the  doors  were  shut  in  her  face. 
They  chased  her  more  than  half  an  hour,  we  following  to 

see  it,  and  at  last  she  was  exhausted  and  fell,  and  they 

123 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

caught  her.  They  dragged  her  to  a  tree  and  threw  a  rope 
over  the  limb,  and  began  to  make  a  noose  in  it,  some  hold 
ing  her,  meantime,  and  she  crying  and  begging,  and  her 
young  daughter  looking  on  and  weeping,  but  afraid  to  say 
or  do  anything. 

/^They  hanged  the  lady,  and  I  threw  a  stone  at  her,  al 
though  in  my  heart  I  was  sorry  for  her;  but  all  were  throw 
ing  stones  and  each  was  wratching  his  neighbor,  and  if  I 
had  not  done  as  the  others  did  it  would  have  been  noticed 
andj>poken  of.  Satan  burst  ouf  laughing. 

All  that  were  nearnby^turned  upon  him,  astonished 
and  not  pleased.  It  was  an  ill  time  to  laugh,  for  his  free 
and  scoffing  ways  and  his  supernatural  music  had  brought 
him  under  suspicion  all  over  the  town  and  turned  many 
privately  against  him.  The  big  blacksmith  called  attention 
to  him  now,  raising  his  voice  so  that  all  should  hear,  and  said : 

"What  are  you  laughing  at?  Answer!  Moreover,  please 
explain  to  the  company  why  you  threw  no  stone." 

"Are  you  sure  I  did  not  throw  a  stone?" 

"Yes.  You  needn't  try  to  get  out  of  it;  I  had  my  eye 
on  you." 

"And  I — I  noticed  you!"  shouted  two  others. 

"Three  witnesses,"  said  Satan:  "Mueller,  the  black 
smith;  Klein,  the  butcher's  man;  Pfeiffer,  the  weaver's 
journeyman.  Three  very  ordinary  liars.  Are  there  any 

more?" 

124 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"Never  mind  whether  there  are  others  or  not,  and  never 
mind  about  what  you  consider  us — three's  enough  to  settle 
your  matter  for  you.  You'll  prove  that  you  threw  a  stone, 
or  it  shall  go  hard  with  you." 

"That's  so!"  shouted  the  crowd,  and  surged  up  as 
closely  as  they  could  to  the  center  of  interest. 

"And  first  you  will  answer  that  other  question,"  cried 
the  blacksmith,  pleased  with  himself  for  being  mouthpiece 
to  the  public  and  hero  of  the  occasion.  "What  are  you 
laughing  at?" 

Satan  smiled  and  answered,  pleasantly:  "To  see  three 
cowards  stoning  a  dying  lady  when  they  were  so  near  death 
themselves." 

You  could  see  the  superstitious  crowd  shrink  and  catch 
their  breath,  under  the  sudden  shock.  The  blacksmith, 
with  a  show  of  bravado,  said: 

"Pooh!    What  do  you  know  about  it?" 

"I?  Everything.  By  profession  I  am  a  fortune-teller, 
and  I  read  the  hands  of  you  three — and  some  others — when 
you  lifted  them  to  stone  the  woman.  One  of  you  will  die 
to-morrow  week;  another  of  you  will  die  to-night;  the 
third  has  but  five  minutes  to  live — and  yonder  is  the  clock!" 

It  made  a  sensation.  The  faces  of  the  crowd  blanched, 
and  turned  mechanically  toward  the  clock.  The  butcher 
and  the  weaver  seemed  smitten  with  an  illness,  but  the 

blacksmith  braced  up  and  said,  with  spirit: 

125 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"It  is  not  long  to  wait  for  prediction  number  one.  If 
it  fails,  young  master,  you  will  not  live  a  whole  minute 
after,  I  promise  you  that." 

No  one  said  anything;  all  watched  the  clock  in  a  deep 
stillness  which  was  impressive.  When  four  and  a  half 
minutes  were  gone  the  blacksmith  gave  a  sudden  gasp  and 
clapped  his  hand  upon  his  heart,  saying,  "Give  me  breath! 
Give  me  room!"  and  began  to  sink  down.  The  cro\vd 
surged  back,  no  one  offering  to  support  him,  and  he  fell 
lumbering  to  the  ground  and  was  dead.  The  people  stared 
at  him,  then  at  Satan,  then  at  one  another;  and  their 
lips  moved,  but  no  words  came.  Then  Satan  said : 

"Three  saw  that  I  threw  no  stone.  Perhaps  there  are 
others;  let  them  speak." 

It  struck  a  kind  of  panic  into  them,  and,  although  no 
one  answered  him,  many  began  to  violently  accuse  one  an 
other,  saying,  "You  said  he  didn't  throw,"  and  getting  for 
reply,  "It  is  a  lie,  and  I  w^ill  make  you  eat  it!"  And  so  in 
a  moment  they  were  in  a  raging  and  noisy  turmoil,  and 
beating  and  banging  one  another;  and  in  the  midst  was  the 
only  indifferent  one — the  dead  lady  hanging  from  her  rope, 
fe^r  troubles  forgotten,  her  spirit  at  peace. 

"""""So  we""  walked  "away;  and  I  was  riotr-at  ease,  but  was 
saying  to  myself,  "He  told  them  he  was  laughing  at  them, 
but  it  was  a  lie- — he  was  laughing  at  me." 

That  made  him  laugh  again,  and  he  said,  "Yes,  I  was 

126 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

laughing  at  you,  because,  in  fear  of  what  others  might  report t 
about  you,  you  stoned  the  woman  when  your  heart  re-j 
volted  at  the  act — but  I  was  laughing  at  the  others,  too.'i 

"Why?" 

"Because  their  case  was  yours." 

"How  is  that?" 

"Well,  there  were  sixty-eight  people  there,  and  sixty- 
two  of  them  had  no  more  desire  to  throw  a  stone  than  you 
had." 

"Satan!" 

"Oh,  it's  true.  I  know  your  race.  It  is  made  up  of 
sheep.  It  is  governed  by  minorities,  seldom  or  never  by 
majorities.  It  suppresses  its  feelings  and  its  beliefs  and 
follows  the  handful  that  makes  the  most  noise.  Sometimes  j 
the  noisy  handful  is  right,  sometimes  wrong;  but  no  matter, 
the  crowd  follows  it.  The  vast  majority  of  the  race,  whether 
savage  or  civilized,  are  secreiy^_kind-hearted  and  shrink 
from  inflicting  pain,  but  in. the  presence  of  .the  aggressive, 
and  pitiless  minority  they  don't  dare  to  assert  themselves. 
Think  of  it !  One  kind-hearted  creature  spies  upon  another, 
and  sees  to  it  that  he  loyally  helps  in  iniquities  which  revolt 
both  of  them.  Speaking  as  an  expert,  I  know  that  ninety- 
nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  your  race  were  strongly  against  the 
killing  of  witches  when  that  foolishness  was  first  agitated 
by  a  handful  of  pious  lunatics  in  the  long  ago.  And  I 

know  that  even  to-day,  after  ages  of  transmitted  prejudice 

127 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

and  silly  teaching,  only  one  person  in  twenty  puts  any  real 
heart  into  the  harrying  of  a  witch.  And  yet  apparently 
everybody  hates  witches  and  wants  them  killed.  Some 
day  a  handful  will  rise  up  on  the  other  side  and  make  the 
most  noise — perhaps  even  a  single  daring  man  with  a  big 
voice  and  a  determined  front  will  do  it — and  in  a  week  all 
the  sheep  wall  wheel  and  follow  him,  and  wdtch-hunting 
\  will  come  to  a  sudden  end. 

VM«&H».       •  if  *•*  -  ""— -^ZT 

"Monarchies,  aristocracies,  and  religions  are  all  based 
upon  that  large  defect  in  your  race— the  individual's  dis 
trust  of  his  neighbor,  and  his  desire,  for  safety's  or  com 
fort's  sake,  to  stand  well  in  his  neighbor's  eye.  These  in 
stitutions  will  always  remain,  and  always  flourish,  and 
I  always  oppress  you,  affront  you,  and  degrade  you,  because 
you  will  always  be  and  remain  slaves  of  minorities.  There 
was  never  a  country  where  the  majority  of  the  people  were 
in  their  secret  hearts  loyal  to  any  of  these  institutions." 

I  did  not  like  to  hear  our  race  called  sheep,  and  said  I  did 
not  think  they  were. 

"Still,  it  is  true,  lamb,"  said  Satan.  "Look  at  you  in 
war — what  mutton  you  are,  and  how  ridiculous!" 

"In  war?     How?" 

:<  There  has  never  been  a  just  one,  never  an  honorable 
one — on  the  part  of  the  instigator  of  the  war.  I  can  see  a 
million  years  ahead,  and  this  rule  will  never  change  in  so 

many  as  half  a  dozen  instances.    The  loud  little  handful — 

128 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

as  usual — will  shout  for  the  war.  The  pulpit  will — warily 
and  cautiously — object — at  first;  the  great,  big,  dull  bulk 
of  the  nation  will  rub  its  sleepy  eyes  and  try  to  make  out 
why  there  should  be  a  war,  and  will  say,  earnestly  and  in 
dignantly,  "It  is  unjust  and  dishonorable,  and  there  is  no 
necessity  for  it."  Then  the  handful  will  shout  louder.  A 
few  fair  men  on  the  other  side  will  argue  and  reason  against 
the  war  with  speech  and  pen,  and  at  first  will  have  a  hear 
ing  and  be  applauded;  but  it  \vill  not  last  long;  those 
others  will  outshout  them,  and  presently  the  anti-war 
audiences  will  thin  out  and  lose  popularity.  Before  long 
you  will  see  this  curious  thing:  the  speakers  stoned  from 
the  platform,  and  free  speech  strangled  by  hordes  of  furious 
men  who  in  their  secret  hearts  are  still  at  one  with  those 
stoned  speakers — as  earlier — but  do  not  dare  to  say  so. 
And  now  the  whole  nation — pulpit  and  all — will  take  up 
the  war-cry,  and  shout  itself  hoarse,  and  mob  any  honest 
man  who  ventures  to  open  his  mouth;  and  presently  such 
mouths  will  cease  to  open.  Next  the  statesmen  will  invent 
cheap  lies,  putting  the  blame  upon  the  nation  that  is 
attacked,  and  every  man  will  be  glad  of  those  conscience- 
soothing  falsities,  and  will  diligently  study  them,  and  re 
fuse  to  examine  any  refutations  of  them;  and  thus  he  will 
by  and  by  convince  himself  that  the  war  is  just,  and  will 
thank  God  for  the  better  sleep  he  enjoys  after  this  process 

of  grotesque  self-deception." 

129 


CHAPTER  X 

DAYS  and  days  went  by  now,  and  no  Satan.  JLt_was 
duUjoLthout  him.  But  the  astrologer,  who  had  re- 
turnedTrom  his  excursion  to  the  moon,  went  about  the  vil 
lage,  braving  public  opinion,  and  getting  a  stone  in  the  mid 
dle  of  his  back  now  and  then  when  some  witch-hater  got  a 
safe  chance  to  throw  it  and  dodge  out  of  sight.  Meantime 
two  influences  had  been  working  well  for  Marget.  That 
Satan,  who  was  quite  indifferent  to  her,  had  stopped  going 
to  her  house  after  a  visit  or  two  had  hurt  her  pride,  and 
she  had  set  herself  the  task  of  banishing  him  from  her 
heart.  Reports  of  Wilhelm  Meidling's  dissipation  brought 
to  her  from  time  to  time  by  old  Ursula  had  touched  her 
with  remorse,  jealousy  of  Satan  being  the  cause  of  it;  and 
so  now,  these  two  matters  working  upon  her  together,  she 
was  getting  a  good  profit  out  of  the  combination — her 
interest  in  Satan  was  steadily  cooling,  her  interest  in  Wil 
helm  as  steadily  warming.  All  that  was  needed  to  com 
plete  her  conversion  was  that  Wilhelm  should  brace  up  and 
do  something  that  should  cause  favorable  talk  and  incline 

the  public  toward  him  again. 

130 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

The  opportunity  came  now.  Marget  sent  and  asked 
him  to  defend  her  uncle  in  the  approaching  trial,  and  he 
was  greatly  pleased,  and  stopped  drinking  and  began  his 
preparations  writh  diligence.  With  more  diligence  than 
hope,  in  fact,  for  it  was  not  a  promising  case.  He  had 
many  interviews  in  his  office  with  Seppi  and  me,  and 
threshed  out  our  testimony  pretty  thoroughly,  thinking  to 
find  some  valuable  grains  among  the  chaff,  but  the  harvest 
was  poor,  of  course. 

If  Satan  would  only  come!  That  was  my  constant 
thought.  He  could  invent  some  way  to  win  the  case;  for 
he  had  said  it  would  be  won,  so  he  necessarily  knew  how 
it  could  be  done.  But  the  days  dragged  on,  and  still  he 
did  not  come.  Of  course  I  did  not  doubt  that  it  would 
win,  and  that  Father  Peter  would  be  happy  for  the  rest  of 
his  life,  since  Satan  had  said  so;  yet  I  knew  I  should  be 
much  more  comfortable  if  he  would  come  and  tell  us  how 
to  manage  it.  It  was  getting  high  time  for  Father  Peter 
to  have  a  saving  change  toward  happiness,  for  by  general 
report  he  was  worn  out  with  his  imprisonment  and  the 
ignominy  that  was  burdening  him,  and  was  like  to  die  of 
his  miseries  unless  he  got  relief  soon. 

At  last  the  trial  came  on,  and  the  people  gathered  from 
all  around  to  witness  it;  among  them  many  strangers 
from  considerable  distances.  Yes,  everybody  was  there 

except  the  accused.     He  was  too  feeble  in  body  for  the 

131 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

strain.  But  Marget  was  present,  and  keeping  up  her 
hope  and  her  spirit  the  best  she  could.  The  money  was 
present,  too.  It  was  emptied  on  the  table,  and  was  handled 
and  caressed  and  examined  by  such  as  were  privileged. 

The  astrologer  was  put  in  the  witness-box.  He  had  on 
his  best  hat  and  robe  for  the  occasion. 

Question.  You  claim  that  this  money  is  yours? 

Answer.  I  do. 

Q.  How  did  you  come  by  it? 

A.  I  found  the  bag  in  the  road  when  I  was  returning 
from  a  journey. 

Q.  When? 

A.  More  than  two  years  ago. 

Q.  What  did  you  do  with  it? 

A.  I  brought  it  home  and  hid  it  in  a  secret  place  in 
my  observatory,  intending  to  find  the  owner  if  I  could. 

Q.  You  endeavored  to  find  him? 

A.  I  made  diligent  inquiry  during  several  months,  but 
nothing  came  of  it. 

Q.  And  then? 

A.  I  thought  it  not  worth  while  to  look  further,  and 
was  minded  to  use  the  money  in  finishing  the  wing  of  the 
foundling-asylum  connected  with  the  priory  and  nunnery. 
So  I  took  it  out  of  its  hiding-place  and  counted  it  to  see  if 
any  of  it  was  missing.  And  then — 

Q.  Why  do  you  stop?     Proceed. 
.   '       132 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

A.  I  am  sorry  to  have  to  say  this,  but  just  as  I  had 
finished  and  was  restoring  the  bag  to  its  place,  I  looked  up 
and  there  stood  Father  Peter  behind  me. 

Several  murmured,  "That  looks  bad,"  but  others 
answered,  "Ah,  but  he  is  such  a  liar!" 

Q.  That  made  you  uneasy? 

A.  No;  I  thought  nothing  of  it  at  the  time,  for  Father 
Peter  often  came  to  me  unannounced  to  ask  for  a  little 
help  in  his  need. 

Marget  blushed  crimson  at  hearing  her  uncle  falsely 
and  impudently  charged  with  begging,  especially  from  one 
he  had  always  denounced  as  a  fraud,  and  was  going  to 
speak,  but  remembered  herself  in  time  and  held  her  peace. 

Q.  Proceed. 

A.  In  the  end  I  was  afraid  to  contribute  the  money  to 
the  foundling-asylum,  but  elected  to  wait  yet  another  year 
and  continue  my  inquiries.  When  I  heard  of  Father  Peter's 
find  I  was  glad,  and  no  suspicions  entered  my  mind;  when 
I  came  home  a  day  or  two  later  and  discovered  that  my 
own  money  was  gone  I  still  did  not  suspect  until  three  cir 
cumstances  connected  with  Father  Peter's  good  fortune 
struck  me  as  being  singular  coincidences. 

Q.  Pray  name  them. 

A.  Father  Peter  had  found  his  money  in  a  path — I 
had  found  mine  in  a  road.  Father  Peter's  find  consisted 

exclusively   of    gold   ducats  —  mine    also.      Father    Peter 

133 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

found  eleven  hundred  and  seven  ducats — I  exactly  the 
same. 

This  closed  his  evidence,  and  certainly  it  made  a  strong 
impression  on  the  house;  one  could  see  that. 

Wilhelm  Meidling  asked  him  some  questions,  then 
called  us  boys,  and  we  told  our  tale.  It  made  the  people 
laugh,  and  we  were  ashamed.  We  were  feeling  pretty 
badly,  anyhow,  because  Wilhelm  was  hopeless,  and  showed 
it.  He  was  doing  as  well  as  he  could,  poor  young  fellow,  but 
nothing  was  in  his  favor,  and  such  sympathy  as  there  was 
was  now  plainly  not  with  his  client.  It  might  be  difficult 
for  court  and  people  to  believe  the  astrologer's  story,  con 
sidering  his  character,  but  it  was  almost  impossible  to 
believe  Father  Peter's.  We  were  already  feeling  badly 
enough,  but  when  the  astrologer's  lawyer  said  he  believed 
he  would  not  ask  us  any  questions — for  our  story  was  a 
little  delicate  and  it  would  be  cruel  for  him  to  put  any 
strain  upon  it — everybody  tittered,  and  it  was  almost  more 
than  w^e  could  bear.  Then  he  made  a  sarcastic  little  speech, 
and  got  so  much  fun  out  of  our  tale,  and  it  seemed  so  ridic 
ulous  and  childish  and  every  way  impossible  and  foolish, 
that  it  made  everybody  laugh  till  the  tears  came;  and  at 
last  Marget  could  not  keep  up  her  courage  any  longer,  but 
broke  dowrn  and  cried,  and  I  was  so  sorry  for  her. 

Now  I  noticed  something  that  braced  me  up.     It  was 

Satan  standing  alongside  of  Wilhelm!    And  there  was  such 

134 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

a  contrast ! — Satan  looked  so  confident,  had  such  a  spirit  in 
his  eyes  and  face,  and  Wilhelm  looked  _so_dei)ressed  and 
despondent.  We  two  were  comfortable  now,  and  judged 
that  he  would  testify  and  persuade  the  bench  and  the 
people  that  black  was  white  and  white  black,  or  any  other 
color  he  wanted  it.  We  glanced  around  to  see  what  the 
strangers  in  the  house  thought  of  him,  for  he  was  beautiful, 
you  know — stunning,  in  fact — but  no  one  was  noticing 
him;  so  we  knew  by  that  that  he  was  invisible. 

The  lawyer  was  saying  his  last  words;  and  while  he 
was  saying  them  Satan  began  to  melt  into  Wilhelm.  He 
melted  into  him  and  disappeared;  and  then  there  was  a 
change,  when  his  spirit  began  to  look  out  of  Wilhelm's  eyes. 

That  lawyer  finished  quite  seriously,  and  with  dignity. 
He  pointed  to  the  money,  and  said: 

"The  love  of  it  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  There  it  lies,  the 
ancient  tempter,  newly  red  with  the  shame  of  its  latest 
victory — the  dishonor  of  a  priest  of  God  and  his  two  poor 
juvenile  helpers  in  crime.  If  it  could  but  speak,  let  us  hope 
that  it  would  be  constrained  to  confess  that  of  all  its  con 
quests  this  was  the  basest  and  the  most  pathetic." 

He  sat  down.    Wilhelm  rose  and  said: 

"From  the  testimony  of  the  accuser  I  gather  that  he 
found  this  money  in  a  road  more  than  two  years  ago.  Cor 
rect  me,  sir,  if  I  misunderstood  you." 

The  astrologer  said  his  understanding  of  it  was  correct. 

135 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

"And  the  money  so  found  was  never  out  of  his  hands 
thenceforth  up  to  a  certain  definite  date — the  last  day  of 
last  year.  Correct  me,  sir,  if  I  am  wrong." 

The  astrologer  nodded  his  head.  Wilhelm  turned  to  the 
bench  and  said: 

"If  I  prove  that  this  money  here  was  not  that  money, 
then  it  is  not  his?" 

"Certainly  not;  but  this  is  irregular.  If  you  had  such 
a  witness  it  \vas  your  duty  to  give  proper  notice  of  it 
and  have  him  here  to—  He  broke  off  and  began  to 
consult  with  the  other  judges.  Meantime  that  other 
lawyer  got  up  excited  and  began  to  protest  against  al 
lowing  new  witnesses  to  be  brought  into  the  case  at  this 
late  stage. 

The  judges  decided  that  his  contention  was  just  and 
must  be  allowed. 

"But  this  is  not  a  new  witness,"  said  Wilhelm.  "It 
has  already  been  partly  examined.  I  speak  of  the  coin." 

"The  coin?    What  can  the  coin  say?" 

"It  can  say  it  is  not  the  coin  that  the  astrologer  once 
possessed.  It  can  say  it  was  not  in  existence  last  December. 
By  its  date  it  can  say  this." 

And  it  was  so!  There  was  the  greatest  excitement  in 
the  court  while  that  lawyer  and  the  judges  were  reaching 
for  coins  and  examining  them  and  exclaiming.  And  every 
body  was  full  of  admiration  of  Wilhelm's  brightness  in 

136 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

happening  to  think  of  that  neat  idea.  At  last  order  was 
called  and  the  court  said: 

"All  of  the  coins  but  four  are  of  the  date  of  the  present 
year.  The  court  tenders  its  sincere  sympathy  to  the  ac 
cused,  and  its  deep  regret  that  he,  an  innocent  man,  through 
an  unfortunate  mistake,  has  suffered  the  undeserved  humili 
ation  of  imprisonment  and  trial.  The  case  is  dismissed." 

So  the  money  £ould  speak,  after  all,  though  that  lawyer 
thought  it  couldn't.  The  court  rose,  and  almost  everybody 
came  forward  to  shake  hands  with  Marget  and  congratu 
late  her,  and  then  to  shake  with  Wilhelm  and  praise  him; 
and  Satan  had  stepped  out  of  Wilhelm  and  was  standing 
around  looking  on  full  of  interest,  and  people  walking 
through  him  every  which  way,  not  knowing  he  was  there. 
And  Wilhelm  could  not  explain  why  he  only  thought  of 
the  date  on  the  coins  at  the  last  moment,  instead  of  earlier; 
he  said  it  just  occurred  to  him,  all  of  a  sudden,  like  an 
inspiration,  and  he  brought  it  right  out  without  any  hesi 
tation,  for,  although  he  didn't  examine  the  coins,  he  seemed, 
somehow,  to  know  it  was  true.  That  was  honest  of  him, 
and  like  him;  another  would  have  pretended  he  had 
thought  of  it  earlier,  and  was  keeping  it  back  for  a  surprise. 

He  had  dulled  down  a  little  now;  not  much,  but  still 
you  could  notice  that  he  hadn't  that  luminous  look  in  his 
eyes  that  he  had  while  Satan  was  in  him.  He  nearly  got  it 

back,  though,  for  a  moment  when  Marget  came  and  praised 
10  137 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

him  and  thanked  him  and  couldn't  keep  him  from  seeing 
how  proud  she  was  of  him.  The  astrologer  went  off  dis 
satisfied  and  cursing,  and  Solomon  Isaacs  gathered  .up  the 
money  and  carried  it  away.  It  was  Father  Peter's  for  good 
and  all,  now. 

Satan  was  gone.  I  judged  that  he  had  spirited  himself 
away  to  the  jail  to  tell  the  prisoner  the  news;  and  in  this 
I  was  right.  Marget  and  the  rest  of  us  hurried  thither  at 
our  best  speed,  in  a  great  state  of  rejoicing. 

Well,  what  Satan  had  done  was  this :  he  had  appeared 
before  that  poor  prisoner,  exclaiming,  "The  trial  is  over, 
and  you  stand  forever  disgraced  as  a  thief — by  verdict  of 
the  court!" 

The  shock  unseated  the  old  man's  reason.  When  w^e 
arrived,  ten  minutes  later,  he  was  parading  pompously  up 
and  down  and  delivering  commands  to  this  and  that  and 
the  other  constable  or  jailer,  and  calling  them  Grand 
Chamberlain,  and  Prince  This  and  Prince  That,  and  Ad 
miral  of  the  Fleet,  Field  Marshal  in  Command,  and  all 
such  fustian,  and  was  as  happy  as  a  bird.  He  thought  he 
was  Emperor! 

Marget  flung  herself  on  his  breast  and  cried,  and  indeed 
everybody  was  moved  almost  to  heartbreak.  He  recog 
nized  Marget,  but  could  not  understand  why  she  should 
cry.  He  patted  her  on  the  shoulder  and  said: 

"Don't  do  it,  dear;  remember,  there  are  witnesses,  and 

138 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

it  is  not  becoming  in  the  Crown  Princess.  Tell  me  your 
trouble — it  shall  be  mended;  there  is  nothing  the  Emperor 
cannot  do."  Then  he  looked  around  and  saw  old  Ursula 
with  her  apron  to  her  eyes.  He  was  puzzled  at  that,  and 
said,  "And  what  is  the  matter  with  you?" 

Through  her  sobs  she  got  out  words  explaining  that  she 
was  distressed  to  see  him — "so."  He  reflected  over  that 
a  moment,  then  muttered,  as  if  to  himself:  "A  singular  old 
thing,  the  Dowager  Duchess — means  well,  but  is  always 
snuffling  and  never  able  to  tell  what  it  is  about.  It  is  be 
cause  she  doesn't  know."  His  eye  fell  on  Wilhelm.  "Prince 
of  India,"  he  said,  "I  divine  that  it  is  you  that  the  Crown 
Princess  is  concerned  about.  Her  tears  shall  be  dried;  I 
will  no  longer  stand  between  you;  she  shall  share  your 
throne;  and  between  you  you  shall  inherit  mine.  There, 
little  lady,  have  I  done  well?  You  can  smile  now — isn't 
it  so?" 

He  petted  Marget  and  kissed  her,  and  was  so  contented 
with  himself  and  with  everybody  that  he  could  not  do 
enough  for  us  all,  but  began  to  give  away  kingdoms  and 
such  things  right  and  left,  and  the  least  that  any  of  us 
got  was  a  principality.  And  so  at  last,  being  persuaded 
to  go  home,  he  marched  in  imposing  state;  and  when 
the  crowds  along  the  way  saw  how  it  gratified  him  to 
be  hurrahed  at,  they  humored  him  to  the  top  of  his 

desire,  and  he  responded  with  condescending  bows  and 

139 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

gracious  smiles,  and  often  stretched  out  a  hand  and  said, 
"Bless  you,  my  people!" 

As  pitiful  a  sight  as  ever  I  saw.  And  Marget,  and  old 
Ursula  crying  all  the  way. 

On  my  road  home  I  came  upon  Satan,  and  reproached 
him  with  deceiving  me  with  that  lie.  He  was  not  em 
barrassed,  but  said,  quite  simply  and  composedly: 

"Ah,  you  mistake;  it  was  the  truth.  I  said  he  would 
be  happy  the  rest  of  his  days,  and  he  will,  for  he  will  always 
think  he  is  the  Emperor,  and  his  pride  in  it  and  his  joy  in  it 
will  endure  to  the  end.  He  is  now,  and  will  remain,  the  one 
utterly  happy  person  in  this  empire." 

"But  the  method  of  it,  Satan,  the  method!  Couldn't 
you  have  done  it  without  depriving  him  of  his  reason?" 

It  was  difficult  to  irritate  Satan,  but  that  accomplished 
it. 

"What  an  ass  you  are!"  he  said.  "Are  you  so  unobserv 
ant  as  not  to  have  found  out  that  sanity  and  happiness  are 
an  impossible  combination?  No  sane  man  can  be  happy, 

to  him  life  is  real,  and  he  sees  what  a  fearful  thing  it  is. 
Only  the  mad  can  be  happy,  and  not  many  of  those.  The 
few  that  imagine  themselves  kings  or  gods  are  happy,  the 
rest  are  no  happier  than  the  sane.  Of  course,  no  man  is 
entirely  in  his  right  mind  at  any  time,  but  I  have  been  re 
ferring  to  the  extreme  cases.  I  have  taken  from  this  man 

that  trumpery  thing  which  the  race  regards  as  a  Mind;   I 

140 


THE  MYSTERIOUS    STRANGER 

have  replaced  his  tin  life  with  a  silver-gilt  ficticn;  you  see 
the  result — and  you  criticize!  I  said  I  would  make  him 
permanently  happy,  and  I  have  done  it.  I  1  ave  made 
him  happy  by  the  only  means  possible  to  his  race — and 
you  are  not  satisfied!"  He  heaved  a  discouraged  sigh,  and 
said,  "It  seems  to  me  that  this  race  is  hard  to  please.*/ 

There  it  was,  you  see.  He  didn't  seem  to  know  any 
way  to  do  a  person  a  favor  except  by  killing  him  or  making 
a  lunatic  out  of  him.  I  apologized,  as  well  as  I  could ;  but 

privately  I  did  not  think  much  of  his  processes — at  that  time. 

V 

Satan  was  accustomed  to  say  that  our  race  lived  a  life 
of  continuous  and  uninterrupted  self-deception.  It  duped 
itself  from  cradle  to  grave  with  shams  and  delusions  which 
it  mistook  for  realities,  and  this  made  its  entire  life  a  sham* 
Of  the  score  of  fine  qualities  which  it  imagined  it  had  and 
was  vain  of,  it  really  possessed  hardly  one.  It  regarded 
itself  as  gold,  and  was  only  brass.  One  day  when  he  was 
in  this  vein  he  mentioned  a  detail — the  sense  of  humor. 
I  cheered  up  then,  and  took  issue.  I  said  we  possessed  it. 

"There  spoke  the  race!"  he  said;  "always  ready  to 
claim  what  it  hasn't  got,  and  mistake  its  ounce  of  brass 
filings  for  a  ton  of  gold-dust.  You  have  a  mongrel  percep 
tion  of  humor,  nothing  more;  a  multitude  of  you  possess 
that.  This  multitude  see  the  comic  side  of  a  thousand  low- 
grade  and  trivial  things — broad  incongruities,  mainly;  gro- 

141 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

tesqueries,  ibsurdities,  evokers  of  the  horse-laugh.  The  ten 
thousand  1  igh-grade  comicalities  which  exist  in  the  world 
are  sealed  :rom  their  dull  vision^  Will  a  day  come  when  the 
race  will  d'etect  the  funniness  of  these  juvenilities  and  laugh 
at  them — and  by  laughing  at  them  destroy  them?  For 
your  race,  in  its  poverty,  has  unquestionably  one  really 
effective  weapon  —  laughter.  Power,  money,  persuasion, 
supplication,  persecution  —  these  can  lift  at  a  colossal 
humbug — push  it  a  little — weaken  it  a  little,  century  by 
century;  but  only  laughter  can  blow  it  to  rags  and  atoms 
at  a  blast.  Against  the  assault  of  laughter  nothing  can 
stand.  You  are  always  fussing  and  fighting  with  your 
other  weapons.  Do  you  ever  use  that  one?  No;  you  leave 
it  lying  rusting.  As  a  race,  do  you  ever  use  it  at  all?  No; 
you  lack  sense  and  the  courage." 

We  were  traveling  at  the  time  and  stopped  at  a  little 
city  in  India  and  looked  on  while  a  juggler  did  his  tricks 
before  a  group  of  natives.  They  were  wonderful,  but  I 
knew  Satan  could  beat  that  game,  and  I  begged  him  to  show 
off  a  little,  and  he  said  he  would.  He  changed  himself  into 
a  native  in  turban  and  breech-cloth,  and  very  considerately 
conferred  on  me  a  temporary  knowledge  of  the  language. 

The  juggler  exhibited  a  seed,  covered  it  with  earth  in  a 
small  flower-pot,  then  put  a  rag  over  the  pot;  after  a  min 
ute  the  rag  began  to  rise;  in  ten  minutes  it  had  risen  a  foot; 

142 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

then  the  rag  was  removed  and  a  little  tree  was  exposed, 
with  leaves  upon  it  and  ripe  fruit.  We  ate  the  fruit,  and  it 
was  good.  But  Satan  said: 

"Why  do  you  cover  the  pot?  Can't  you  grow  the  tree 
in  the  sunlight?" 

"No,"  said  the  juggler;  "no  one  can  do  that." 

"You  are  only  an  apprentice;  you  don't  know  your 
trade.  Give  me  the  seed.  I  will  show  you."  He  took  the 
seed  and  said,  "What  shall  I  raise  from  it?" 

"It  is  a  cherry  seed;  of  course  you  will  raise  a  cherry." 

"Oh  no;  that  is  a  trifle;  any  novice  can  do  that.  Shall 
I  raise  an  orange-tree  from  it?" 

"Oh  yes!"  and  the  juggler  laughed. 

"  And  shall  I  make  it  bear  other  fruits  as  well  as  oranges?" 

"If  God  wills!"  and  they  all  laughed. 

Satan  put  the  seed  in  the  ground,  put  a  handful  of 
dust  on  it,  and  said,  "Rise!" 

A  tiny  stem  shot  up  and  began  to  grow,  and  grew  so 
fast  that  in  five  minutes  it  was  a  great  tree,  and  we  were 
sitting  in  the  shade  of  it.  There  was  a  murmur  of  wonder, 
then  all  looked  up  and  saw  a  strange  and  pretty  sight,  for 
the  branches  were  heavy  with  fruits  of  many  kinds  and 
colors — oranges,  grapes,  bananas,  peaches,  cherries,  apri 
cots,  and  so  on.  Baskets  were  brought,  and  the  unlading 
of  the  tree  began;  and  the  people  crowded  around  Satan 

and  kissed  his  hand,  and  praised  him,  calling  him  the 

143 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

prince  of  jugglers.  The  news  went  about  the  town,  and 
everybody  came  running  to  see  the  wonder — and  they 
-  remembered  to  bring  baskets,  too.  But  the  tree  was  equal 
to  the  occasion;  it  put  out  new  fruits  as  fast  as  any  were 
removed;  baskets  were  filled  by  the  score  and  by  the  hun 
dred,  but  always  the  supply  remained  undiminished.  At 
last  a  foreigner  in  white  linen  and  sun-helmet  arrived,  and 
exclaimed,  angrily: 

"Away  from  here!  Clear  out,  you  dogs;  the  tree  is  on 
my  lands  and  is  my  property." 

The  natives  put  down  their  baskets  and  made  humble 
obeisance.  Satan  made  humble  obeisance,  too,  with  his 
fingers  to  his  forehead,  in  the  native  way,  and  said: 

"Please  let  them  have  their  pleasure  for  an  hour,  sir — 
only  that,  and  no  longer.  Afterward  you  may  forbid  them; 
and  you  will  still  have  more  fruit  than  you  and  the  state 

ether  can  consume  in  a  year." 

This  made  the  foreigner  very  angry,  and  he  cried  out, 
are  you,  you  vagabond,  to  tell  your  betters  what 
they  may  do  and  what  they  mayn't!"  and  he  struck  Satan 
with  his  cane  and  followed  this  error  with  a  kick. 

The  fruits  rotted  on  the  branches,  and  the  leaves  with 
ered  and  fell.  The  foreigner  gazed  at  the  bare  limbs  with 
the  look  of  one  who  is  surprised,  and  not  gratified.  Satan 
said: 

"Take  good  care  of  the  tree,  for  its  health  and  yours 

144 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

are  bound  together.  It  will  never  bear  again,  but  if  you 
tend  it  well  it  will  live  long.  Water  its  roots  once  in  each 
hour  every  night — and  do  it  yourself;  it  must  not  be  done 
by  proxy,  and  to  do  it  in  daylight  will  not  answer.  If  you 
fail  only  once  in  any  night,  the  tree  will  die,  and  you  like 
wise.  Do  not  go  home  to  your  own  country  any  more— 
you  would  not  reach  there;  make  no  business  or  pleasure 
engagements  which  require  you  to  go  outside  your  gate  at 
night — you  cannot  afford  the  risk;  do  not  rent  or  sell  this 
place — it  would  be  injudicious." 

The  foreigner  was  proud  and  wouldn't  beg,  but  I  thought 
he  looked  as  if  he  would  like  to.  While  he  stood  gazing  at 
Satan  we  vanished  away  and  landed  in  Ceylon. 

I  was  sorry  for  that  man;  sorry  Satan  hadn't  been  his 
customary  self  and  killed  him  or  made  him  a  lunatic.  It 
would  have  been  a  mercy.  Satan  overheard  the  thought, 
and  said: 

"I  would  have  done  it  but  for  his  wife,  who  has  not 
offended  me.  She  is  coming  to  him  presently  from  their 
native  land,  Portugal.  She  is  well,  but  has  not  long  to 
live,  and  has  been  yearning  to  see  him  and  persuade  him 
to  go  back  with  her  next  year.  She  will  die  without  know 
ing  he  can't  leave  that  place?" 

"He  won't  tell  her?" 

"He?     He  will  not  trust  that  secret  with   any  one; 

he  will  reflect  that  it  could  be  revealed  in  sleep,  in  the 

145 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

hearing  of  some  Portuguese  guest's  servant  some  time  or 
other." 

"Did  none  of  those  natives  understand  what  you  said 
to  him?" 

"None  of  them  understood,  but  he  will  always  be 
afraid  that  some  of  them  did.  That  fear  will  be  torture 
to  him,  for  he  has  been  a  harsh  master  to  them.  In  his 
dreams  he  will  imagine  them  chopping  his  tree  down. 
That  will  make  his  days  uncomfortable — I  have  already 
arranged  for  his  nights." 

It  grieved  me,  though  not  sharply,  to  see  him  take  such 
a  malicious  satisfaction  in  his  plans  for  this  foreigner. 

"Does  he  believe  what  you  told  him,  Satan?" 

"He  thought  he  didn't,  but  our  vanishing  helped.  The 
tree,  where  there  had  been  no  tree  before — that  helped. 
The  insane  and  uncanny  variety  of  fruits — the  sudden 
withering — all  these  things  are  helps.  Let  him  think  as  he 
may,  reason  as  he  may,  one  thing  is  certain,  he  will  water 
the  tree.  But  between  this  and  night  he  will  begin  his 
changed  career  with  a  very  natural  precaution — for  him." 

"What  is  that?" 

"He  will  fetch  a  priest  to  cast  out  the  tree's  devil. 
You  are  such  a  humorous  race — and  don't  suspect  it." 

"Will  he  tell  the  priest?" 

"No.    He  wrill  say  a  juggler  from  Bombay  created  it, 

and  that  he  wants  the  juggler's  devil  driven  out  of  it,  so 

146 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

that  it  will  thrive  and  be  fruitful  again.  The  priest's  in 
cantations  will  fail;  then  the  Portuguese  will  give  up  that 
scheme  and  get  his  watering-pot  ready." 

"But  the  priest  will  burn  the  tree.  I  know  it;  he  will 
not  allow  it  to  remain." 

"Yes,  and  anywhere  in  Europe  he  would  burn  the  man, 
too.  But  in  India  the  people  are  civilized,  and  these  things 
will  not  happen.  The  man  will  drive  the  priest  away  and 
take  care  of  the  tree." 

I  reflected  a  little,  then  said,  "Satan,  you  have  given 
him  a  hard  life,  I  think." 

"Comparatively.  It  must  not  be  mistaken  for  a  holi 
day." 

We  flitted  from  place  to  place  around  the  world  as  we 
had  done  before,  Satan  showing  me  a  hundred  wonders, 
most  of  them  reflecting  in  some  way  the  weakness  and  triv 
iality  of  our  race.  He  did  this  nowr  every  few  days — not 
out  of  malice — I  am  sure  of  that — it  only  seemed  to  amuse 
and  interest  him,  just  as  a  naturalist  might  be  amused  and 
interested  by  a  collection  of  ants. 


CHAPTER  XI 

FOR  as  much  as  a  year  Satan  continued  these  visits,  but 
at  last  he  came  less  often,  and  then  for  a  long  time  he 
did  not  come  at  all.  This  always  made  me  lonely  and  mel 
ancholy.  I  felt  that  he  was  losing  interest  in  our  tiny  world 
and  might  at  any  time  abandon  his  visits  entirely.  When 
one  day  he  finally  came  to  me  I  was  overjoyed,  but  only  for 
a  little  while.  He  had  come  to  say  good-by,  he  told  mey 
and  for  the  last  time.  He  had  investigations  and  under 
takings  in  other  corners  of  the  universe,  he  said,  that  would 
keep  him  busy  for  a  longer  period  than  I  could  wait  for 
his  return. 

"And  you  are  going  away,  and  will  not  come  back  any 
more?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "We  have  comraded  long  together,, 
and  it  has  been  pleasant — pleasant  for  both;  but  I  must 
go  now,  and  we  shall  not  see  each  other  any  more." 

"In  this  life,  Satan,  but  in  another?  We  shall  meet  in 
another,  surely?" 

Then,  all  tranquilly  and  soberly,  he  made  the  strange 

answer,  "  There  is  no  other" 

148 


Painting  by  N.  C.   Wyeth  Illustration  for  "The  Mysterious  Stranger 

"LIFE     ITSELF     IS     ONLY     A     VISION,    A     DREAM" 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

A  subtle  Influence  blew  upon  my  spirit  from  his,  bring-^ 
ing  with  it  a  vague,  dim,  but  blessed  and  hopeful  feeling)' 
that  the  incredible  words  might  be  true — even  must  b/ 
true. 

"Have  you  never  suspected  this,  Theodor?" 

"No.    How  could  I?    But  if  it  can  only  be  true— 

"It  is  true." 

A  gust  of  thankfulness  rose  in  nay  breast,  but  a  doubt 
checked  it  before  it  could  issue  in  words,  and  I  said,  "But 
— but — we  have  seen  that  future  life — seen  it  in  its  actuality, 
and  so—  , 

"It  was  a  vision — it  had  no  existence." 

I  could  hardly  breathe  for  the  great  hope  that  was 
struggling  in  me.  "A  vision? — a  vi— 

"Life  itself  is  only  a  vision,  a  dream." 

It  was  electrical.  By  God!  I  had  had  that  very  thought 
a  thousand  times  in  my  musings! 

"Nothing  exists;  all  is  a  dream.  God — man — the  world 
— the  sun,  the  moon,  the  wilderness  of  stars — a  dream,  all 
a  dream;  they  have  no  existence.  Nothing  exists  save  empty 
space — and  you!" 

"I!" 

"And  you  are  not  you — you  have  no  body,  no  blood,  no 
bones,  you  are  but  a  thought.  I  myself  have  no  existence; 
I  am  but  a  dream — your  dream,  creature  of  your  imagina 
tion.  In  a  moment  you  will  have  realized  this,  then  you 

149 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

will  banish  me  from  your  visions  and  I  shall  dissolve  into 
the  nothingness  out  of  which  you  made  me.  .  .  . 

"I  am  perishing  already — I  am  failing — I  am  passing 
away.  In  a  little  while  you  will  be  alone  in  shoreless  space, 
to  wander  its  limitless  solitudes  without  friend  or  comrade 
forever — for  you  will  remain  a  thought,  the  only  existent 
thought,  and  by  your  nature  inextinguishable,  indestruc 
tible.  But  I,  your  poor  servant,  have  revealed  you  to  your 
self  and  set  you  free.  Dream  other  dreams,  and  better! 

"Strange!  that  you  should  not  have  suspected  years 
ago — centuries,  ages,  eons  ago! — for  you  have  existed,  com- 
panionless,  through  all  the  eternities.  Strange,  indeed,  that 
you  should  not  have  suspected  that  your  universe  and  its 
contents  were  only  dreams,  visions,  fiction!  Strange,  be 
cause  they  are  so  frankly  and  hysterically  insane — like  all 
dreams:  a  God  who  could  make  good  children  as  easily 
as  bad,  yet  preferred  to  make  bad  ones;  who  could  have 
made  every  one  of  them  happy,  yet  never  made  a  single 
happy  one;  who  made  them  prize  their  bitter  life,  yet 
stingily  cut  it  short;  who  gave  his  angels  eternal  happiness 
unearned,  yet  required  his  other  children  to  earn  it;  who 
gave  his  angels  painless  lives,  yet  cursed  his  other  children 
with  biting  miseries  and  maladies  of  mind  and  body;  who 
mouths-  justice  and  invented  hell — mouths  mercy  and  in 
vented  hell — mouths  Golden  Rules,  and  forgiveness  multi 

plied  by   seventy  times   seven,   and   invented  hell;    whc 

150 


THE   MYSTERIOUS   STRANGER 

mouths  morals  to  other  people  and  has  none  himself;  who 
frowns  upon  crimes,  yet  commits  them  all;  who  created 
mar  without  invitation,  then  tries  to  shuffle  the  responsi 
bility  for  man's  acts  upon  man,  instead  of  honorably  placing 
it  where  it  belongs,  upon  himself;  and  finally,  with  alto 
gether  divine  obtuseness,  invites  this  poor,  abused  slave  to 

.  tip  him!  .  .  . 

v  You  perceive,  now,  that  these  things  are  all  impossible 

:c<  ;>t  in  a  dream.     You  perceive  that  they  are  pure  and 

p  aerie  insanities,  the  silly  creations  of  an  imagination  that 

is  not  conscious  of  its  freaks — in  a  word,  that  they  are  a 

dream,  and  you  the  maker  of  it.    Ths  dream-marks  are  all 

;nt;    you  should  have  recognized  them  earlier. 

It  is  true,  that  which  I  have  revealed  to  you:   there 

is  n  >  God,  no  universe,  no  human  race,  no  earthly  life,  no 

heaven,  no  hell.     It  is  all  a  dream — a  grotesque  and  foolish 

dream.    Nothing  exists  but  you.    And  you  are  but  a  thought 

vagrant  thought,  a  useless  thought,  a  homeless  thought, 
wandering  forlorn  among  the  empty  eternities!" 

He  vanished,  and  left  me  appalled;    for  I  knew,  and 
realized,  that  all  he  had  said  was  true. 


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